THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 

WILLARD  HIGLEY  DURHAM 

DEPARTMENT  OF  ENGLISH 

I92I-I954 


THOMAS  HARDY 


UNIFORM  WITH  THIS  VOLUME: 

J.  M.  SYNGE 
By  P.  P,  Howe 

HENRIK  IBSEN 

By  R.  Ellis  Roberts 

GEORGE  GISSING 
By  Frank  Swinnerton 

WILLIAM  MORRIS 
By  John  Drinkwater 

THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK 
By  A.  Martin  Freeman 

ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE 
By  Edward  Thomas 


THOMAS  HARDY 

A  CRITICAL  STUDY 

BY 
LASGELLES  ABERGROMBIE 


NEW   YORK 
MITCHELL    KENNERLEY 

MCMXII 


a^ 


V^ 


\*' 


\s*K 


1    \Hl5<{ 

Az 


NOTE 


Mr.  Hardy  has  kindly  given  me  permission  to 
use  such  quotations  as  I  required  for  this  study 
of  his  work.  But  it  should  be  understood  that 
the  book  contains  nothing  whatever  that  may 
be  called  "  authorized  " ;  it  is  simply  my  own 
reading  of  Mr.  Hardy's  stories  and  poems. 
Biography  was  no  part  of  my  intention.  The 
book  will  scarcely  appeal  to  those  who  are  not 
already  acquainted  with  its  subject ;  but  for- 
tunately it  is  not  extravagant  to  assume  a  very 
general  knowledge  of  the  works  here  considered. 
It  was  therefore  easy  to  dispense  with  full  de- 
scriptions of  narrative  material,  with  analyses 
of  plots,  and  so  on.  I  have  simply  attempted 
to  criticize  my  private  belief  that  Thomas 
Hardy's  books  are  among  the  greatest  things 
in  our  modern  literature ;  and,  more  generally, 
to  discuss  not  so  much  their  exact  "  place,"  as 
the  way  they  utter  certain  characteristics  of 
modern  consciousness.  I  am  under  consider- 
able obligation  to  Mr.  Arthur  Ransome ;  by 
using  his  distinction  between  "  kinetic "  and 
"  potential "   language,  the  discussion   of  style 

7 


THOMAS   HARDY 

in  prose  and  poetry  was  very  greatly  facili- 
tated. However,  my  own  obligation  is  only 
a  small  part  of  what  is  due  to  Mr.  Ransome 
from  the  science  of  criticism  itself;  for,  now 
that  this  distinction  of  his  has  been  formulated, 
I  suppose  its  use  can  scarcely  be  avoided  in  any 
precise  examination  of  diction. 

Perhaps  it  may  not  be  amiss  if  I  express  here 
a  feeling  which  could  not  conveniently  appear 
in  the  sequel :  my  deep  sense  of  gratitude  to 
Mr.  Hardy,  for  many  unforgettable  experiences. 

L.  A. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    INTRODUCTORY  11 

II.    CHARACTERISTICS  25 

III.  MINOR   NOVELS  63 

IV.  ANNEXES  76 
V.   DRAMATIC   FORM  97 

VI.   EPIC   FORM  129 

VII.   THE   POEMS  170 

VIII.   THE   DYNASTS  184 


INTRODUCTORY 

Among  the  arts,  as  among  favourites  at  court 
in  the  old  days,  the  latest  comer  has  usually  the 
most  influence.  For  long  enough  the  mind  of 
man  did  pretty  well  without  the  service  and 
flattery  of  the  two  most  recently  ennobled  arts, 
Music  and  the  Novel  ;  but,  now  they  have  been 
taken  into  favour,  it  is,  above  all  others,  these 
two  that  have  the  say  with  their  master.  Their 
right  to  such  a  position  is  not  to  be  disputed  ; 
for  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  right  to  a  position  is 
no  more  than  the  power  to  maintain  it,  and 
there  is  no  questioning  the  powers  which  Music 
and  the  Novel  possess  to-day.  The  arts,  which 
enjoyed  a  former  and,  as  some  still  think,  a  more 
deserved  favour,  are  not,  assuredly,  so  forgotten 
by  their  fortune  as  to  be  rebuked  quite  into 
dumbness ;  but  their  most  manful  partisans 
must  perceive  that  their  words  are  nothing  so 
persuasive,  nor  so  comfortable,  nor  so  convenient 
to  the  mood  of  the  time,  as  the  speech  of  the 
two   latest   favourites.     However,  there    is    no 

11 


THOMAS   HARDY 

shifty  caprice  in  man's  favouritism  among  the 
arts.  Having  listened  for  a  good  while  to  the 
doctrines  of  one,  he,  it  seems,  unconsciously 
wishes  to  try  the  counsel  of  another  ;  and  this 
one  he  advances  into  his  chief  pleasure.  It  is 
surely  fair  dealing.  But  the  new  art  will  not 
hold  itself  there  if  man  himself  is  to  be  a  loser 
by  the  advancement ;  if  it  cannot  at  least 
promise  to  be  as  courteous  and  as  wise  and  as 
practical  in  the  policy  of  his  great  affairs,  as  the 
art  which  preceded  it  in  favour.  We  must 
suppose,  judging  from  what  history  can  see  of 
such  events  in  the  past,  that  no  art  comes  to  be 
a  vizier  over  the  others  with  full  immediate 
possession  of  all  the  capabilities  man  expects 
from  such  an  officer ;  and  it  looks  as  if  man  is 
always  willing  to  give  generous  trial  to  a  new 
vizier,  and  even  to  endure  from  him  blunders  in 
flattery  and  dangerous  mistakes  in  persuasion, 
in  the  confident  hope  that  the  required  capa- 
bilities will  develop  precision  and  depth  by  the 
mere  training  of  the  post.  On  the  whole,  the 
hope  has  found  itself  justified  ;  a  crude,  ungrown, 
unlikely  art,  by  simply  ousting  from  favour  one 
full  of  serious  experience  and  high  speculation, 
has  often  itself  become  all  as  commanding  as 
the  art  it  displaced.  And  this  is  natural ;  for 
all  the  arts  are  of  one  family,  and,  like  the 
Barmecides,  need   but  the  opportunity  of  the 

12 


INTRODUCTORY 

king's  favour  to  bring  forth  similar  genius  for 
pleasing  and  advising  him. 

According  to  our  fable,  then,  the  two  com- 
manding arts  of  the  present,  as  far  as  favour 
goes,  are  also  the  two  which  we  should  specially 
expect  to  show  development  and  "  progress  " ; 
and,  plainly,  this  is  the  case.  But  there  is,  in 
addition,  something  remarkable  about  the  posi- 
tion held  to-day  by  Music  and  Fiction ;  and  it 
is  this,  that  they  have  never  held  the  position 
before.  Man,  for  as  long  as  he  has  truly  been 
man,  has  no  doubt  always  had  them  near  him  ; 
but  they  have  never  before  this  present  period 
of  civilization  been  placed  where  poetry  and 
sculpture  and  drama  have  so  often  been  placed. 
We  cannot  here  inquire  into  the  reasons  for 
this,  nor  draw  any  conclusions  therefrom  ;  our 
present  business  is  to  determine,  if  possible, 
whether  man's  confidence  in  artistic  develop- 
ment has,  as  heretofore,  been  justified  ;  whether, 
in  fact,  of  these  two  new-comers  to  supremacy, 
the  one  in  which  we  are  here  concerned  has 
shown  itself  able  to  counsel  man  as  greatly,  as 
passionately  and  as  seriously,  and  to  flatter  him 
as  pleasantly  and  courageously,  as  the  arts  which 
have  many  times  preceded  it  in  the  chief  office. 

For,  as  to  music,  the  time  of  doubting  has 
long  ago  gone  by.  A  hundred  years  ago  music 
proved  itself  as  powerful  a  counsellor  as  any 

13 


THOMAS   HARDY 

art  has  ever  been ;  and  since  then,  though  it  has 
done  many  bold  things,  it  has  added  nothing  to 
the  nobility  of  its  wisdom.  But  Fiction  has 
had  a  slower  growth ;  and  it  is  still  plausible  to 
doubt  whether  man's  spirit  might  not  be  better 
served  by  discarding  this  art  in  favour  of  one 
more  experienced  in  the  highest  matters.  In- 
deed, what  has  Fiction  done  in  the  highest 
matters  ?  Take  any  great  piece  of  poetry  or  sculp- 
ture or  drama  ;  and  put  any  novel  beside  it.  Is 
there  not  something  which  the  latter  too  evi- 
dently lacks  ?  And  is  this  not  the  very  thing 
which  by  its  presence  allows,  and  by  its  absence 
disallows,  an  art  to  take  the  highest  place  in 
man's  service  ?  Such  questions  are  certainly 
plausible,  provided  that  they  refer  not  merely 
to  the  content,  but  to  the  whole  manner  and 
conduct  of  art.  Nevertheless,  this  book  will 
endeavour  to  maintain,  that  in  our  own  time 
certain  novels  have  been  written  which  must  be 
excluded  from  this  general  disapprobation  of 
Fiction.  It  will  be  claimed  for  the  Wessex 
Novels  of  Thomas  Hardy  that  in  them  Fiction 
has  achieved  both  a  style  and  a  substance  that 
enable  it  to  fulfil  the  gravest  function  of  art — 
with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  work  of  two 
foreign  novelists,  to  fulfil  this  function  for  the 
first  time.  That  this  achievement  is  not  for  the 
most  part  perfectly  understood,  is  very  explic- 

14 


INTRODUCTORY 

able  ;  for  the  novel  has  no  history  of  similar 
achievement  to  help  our  appreciation.  If  it 
were,  for  example,  sculpture  that  concerned 
us,  we  could  refer  back  to  Michelangelo,  to 
Pheidias,  to  the  Pyramid  Age.  But  for  judging 
Fiction,  there  is  no  such  assistance  from  bygones. 
It  will  be  convenient,  therefore,  before  examin- 
ing Thomas  Hardy's  work  in  any  detail,  to  set 
down  generally  what  is  meant  by  this  lofty 
claim. 

In  the  first  place,  it  does  not  necessarily  assert 
this  author  to  be  greater  in  personal  genius  than, 
say,  Cervantes  or  Defoe,  Fielding  or  Balzac. 
Nor  need  the  claim  be  sustained  by  any  pretence 
that  the  Wessex  Novels  are  superior  in  all 
qualities  to  every  other  book  of  the  kind.  In 
humour,  tragedy,  narrative,  psychological  im- 
agination, and  spacious  setting,  Mr.  Hardy's 
finest  novels  are  altogether  admirable.  But 
other  novels  have  at  least  equalled  them  in 
these  matters.  The  thing  is,  however,  that  if 
Fiction  is  to  take  an  equal  place  among  the 
most  aspiring  of  the  arts — if  it  is  to  be  more 
than  a  wholesome  and  laudable  amusement,  more 
than  a  remedy  for  severe  hours,  if  it  is  to  be  a 
notable  increase  of  power  in  man's  endeavour 
for  consciously  delighted  life — these  matters 
must  be  no  more  than  a  means  to  an  end. 
Mr.    Hardy    has    deliberately    and    masterfully 

15 


THOMAS   HARDY 

applied  them  to  that  end  with  more  evident 
purpose  and  larger  success  than  any  other 
novelist.  Just  as  the  crude  material  of  human 
living  must  be  shaped  artistically  into  the 
qualities  above  mentioned,  so  these  very  qualities 
must  be  the  material  submitted  to  the  shaping 
of  a  higher  artistic  power,  presiding  and  dom- 
ineering over  the  whole.  The  activity  of  this 
higher  power  is  what  has  given  to  such  arts  as 
sculpture  and  drama  a  greatness  of  complete 
achievement  which  Fiction  was,  on  the  whole, 
quite  unable  to  rival  until  the  Wessex  Novels 
appeared ;  it  may  be  called  the  metaphysical 
power  of  art.  The  idea  requires  a  little  elabora- 
tion. 

Man's  intercourse  with  the  world  is  necessarily 
formative.  His  experience  of  things  outside  his 
consciousness  is  in  the  manner  of  a  chemistry, 
wherein  some  energy  of  his  nature  is  mated 
with  the  energy  brought  in  on  his  nerves  from 
externals,  the  two  combining  into  something 
which  exists  only  in,  or  perhaps  we  should  say 
closely  around,  man's  consciousness.  Thus  what 
man  knows  of  the  world  is  what  has  been  Jbr??ied 
by  the  mixture  of  his  own  nature  with  the 
streaming  in  of  the  external  world.  This  forma- 
tive energy  of  his,  reducing  the  in-coming  world 
into  some  constant  manner  of  appearance  which 
may  be   appreciable   by  consciousness,  is  most 

16 


INTRODUCTORY 

conveniently  to  be  described,  it  seems,  as  an 
unaltering  imaginative  desire : l  desire  which 
accepts  as  its  material,  and  fashions  itself  forth 
upon,  the  many  random  powers  sent  by  the 
world  to  invade  man's  mind.  That  there  is  this 
formative  energy  in  man  may  easily  be  seen  by 
thinking  of  certain  dreams ;  those  dreams, 
namely,  in  which  some  disturbance  outside 
the  sleeping  brain  (such  as  a  sound  of  knock- 
ing or  a  bodily  discomfort)  is  completely  formed 
into  vivid  trains  of  imagery,  and  in  that  form 
only  is  presented  to  the  dreamer's  conscious- 
ness. This,  however,  merely  shows  the  presence 
of  the  active  desire  to  shape  sensation  into  what 
consciousness  can  accept ;  the  dream  is  like  an 
experiment  done  in  the  isolation  of  a  labora- 
tory ;  there  are  so  many  conflicting  factors  when 
we  are  awake  that  the  events  of  sleep  must  only 
serve  as  a  symbol  or  diagram  of  the  intercourse 
of  mind  with  that  which  is  not  mind — inter- 
course which  only  takes  place  in  a  region  where 
the  outward  radiations  of  man's  nature  combine 
with  the  irradiations  of  the  world.  Perception 
itself  is  a  formative  act ;  and  all  that  construc- 
tion of  sensation  into  some  orderly,  coherent 
idea  of  the  world  is  a  further  activity  of  the 

1  "The  Will  to  Form"  would  perhaps  suit  some  people  better. 
In  this,  of  course,  the  famous  "  Will  to  Power"  is  included,  much  as 
theory  includes  practice.  There  must  necessarily  be  some  formative 
inspiration  behind  achieved  power. 

B  17 


O 


THOMAS   HARDY 

central  imaginative  desire.  But  what  is  im- 
portant for  our  purpose  to  note  here  is,  that 
after  all  this  has  been  done  there  remains  an 
overplus  of  imaginative  desire  ;  man,  it  seems, 
has  more  of  it  in  him  than  is  required  for 
acceptably  presenting  externality  to  conscious- 
ness ;  there  remains  some  desire  which  is  still 
unused,  unsatisfied,  unembodied.  And  the  de- 
sire is  urgent  to  be  used,  embodied,  thereby 
satisfied.  This  is  the  function  of  art :  to  satisfy, 
by  embodying,  man's  overplus  of  imaginative 
desire.  Art  is  created,  and  art  is  enjoyed,  be- 
cause in  it  man  may  find  himself  completely 
expressing  and  exercising  those  inmost  desires 
which  in  ordinary  experience  are  by  no  means 
to  be  completely  expressed.  Life  has  at  last 
been  perfectly  formed  and  measured  to  man's 
requirements ;  and  in  art  man  knows  himself 
truly  the  master  of  his  existence.  It  is  this 
sense  of  mastery  which  gives  man  that  raised 
and  delighted  consciousness  of  self  which  art 
provokes. 

In  art,  then,  man  is  the  master  of  his  being,  in 
so  far,  at  least,  as  that  which  is  most  profoundly 
human  in  him  has  found  triumphant  activity. 
It  is  consequently  in  art  that  his  consciousness 
of  self  is  most  positive  and  most  enjoyed.  But 
there  are  degrees  in  the  mastery,  and  therefore 
in   the   consequence.     The   whole    overplus    of 

18 


INTRODUCTORY 

imaginative  desire  is  not  exercised  unless  the 
art  is  of  the  very  highest.  Until  that  art  is 
reached,  we  may  have  aesthetic  formation  of  the 
pleasure  in  existence,  of  the  relations,  whether 
of  conflict  or  attraction,  between  human  in- 
dividuals, between  man  and  society,  between 
man  and  nature ;  of  particular  problems  in  the 
moral  and  practical  difficulties  wherewith  man's 
life  is  beset ;  we  may  even  have  the  paradoxical 
aesthetic  formation  of  deep  desires  made  always 
futile  by  the  external  destiny,  able  only  to  keep 
a  courageous  front  to  their  futility ;  we  may 
have  all  this  contained  in  art  by  successive 
inclusions,  one  within  the  other ;  and  yet  we 
shall  not  have  the  highest  of  art.  There  re- 
mains unsatisfied  still  something  of  the  imagina- 
tive desire ;  in  such  art  man  has  not  yet  alto- 
gether attained  to  mastery.  The  highest  art 
must  have  a  metaphysic ;  the  final  satisfaction 
of  man's  creative  desire  is  only  to  be  found  in 
aesthetic  formation  of  some  credible  correspond- 
ence between  perceived  existence  and  a  con- 
ceived absoluteness  of  reality.  Only  in  such  art 
will  the  desire  be  employed  to  the  uttermost ; 
only  in  such  art,  therefore,  will  conscious  mas- 
tery seem  complete.  And  Thomas  Hardy,  by 
deliberately  putting  the  art  of  his  fiction  under 
the  control  of  a  metaphysic,  has  thereby  made 
the  novel  capable  of  the  highest  service  to  man's 

19 


THOMAS   HARDY 

consciousness — made  it  truly  the  equal  of  drama 
and  sculpture. 

For  if  the  metaphysic  be  there  at  all,  it  must 
be  altogether  in  control ;  it  would  not  do  to 
have  it  as  an  intellectual  burthen  foisted  on  the 
rest ;  that  would  be  but  poorly,  as  by  an  after- 
thought, to  satisfy  this  final  artistic  desire.  The 
metaphysic  will  be  something  (as  it  is  in  Hardy's 
work)  which  can  only  be  expressed  by  the  whole 
of  the  art  which  contains  it ;  everything  will 
conspire  to  symbolize  it  to  us.  It  will  not 
therefore  be  something  which  may  easily  be 
expressed  in  words ;  such  metaphysic  should 
belong  to  philosophy ;  when  Mr.  Hardy  does 
attempt  overtly  to  express  it,  he  weakens  his 
work.  It  is  to  be  more  a  feeling  than  an  idea, 
an  ethical  metaphysic  rather  than  an  intellectual ; 
somewhat  like  that  of  Anaximander,1  to  whom 
the  differentiation  of  limited  existence  from  the 
primal  unlimited  being  seemed  a  moral  trans- 
gression, an  offence  against  the  majesty  of 
boundlessness,  justly  punished  by  inevitable 
death ;  or,  a  better  instance,  like  the  terrible 
metaphysic  expressed  in  Michelangelo's  statue 
called  "  Dawn."     That  Mr.  Hardy's  metaphysic 

1  Philosophy  is  also  a  satisfaction,  by  complete  employment,  of 
the  overplus  of  man's  imaginative  desire  ;  but  it  has  become  dis- 
tinguished from  art  as  the  satisfaction  given  primarily  through  the 
intellect.  In  Anaximander's  time,  however,  a  philosophical  meta- 
physic was  not  yet  sharply  distinguishable  from  an  artistic  one. 

20 


INTRODUCTORY 

is  also  like  these  in  being  tragical  could  not  be 
avoided  ;  for  who  knows  better  than  he  how  the 
senseless  process  of  the  world  for  ever  contra- 
dicts the  human  will?  Indeed,  tragedy,  and 
especially  a  tragic  metaphysic,  is  the  one  remedy 
good  for  this  desolating  knowledge ;  more  will 
be  said  of  this  in  the  next  chapter. 

The  notion  of  artistic  mastery  over  existence 
is  one  that  is  common  nowadays  in  criticism ; 
but  many,  too  easily  inspired  by  Nietzsche,  are 
apt  to  use  it  narrowly,  in  the  dangerous  spirit 
of  doctrinaires.  It  seems  to  be  thought  that 
there  should  be  some  strict  choice  in  the 
materials  of  art ;  in  the  case  of  Fiction,  only 
"  masterful,"  "  aristocratic  "  natures  should  be 
exhibited.  This,  of  course,  is  nonsense,  an 
absurd  mistaking  of  the  way  in  which  great 
art  does  indeed  infect  him  who  enjoys  it  with 
a  conscious  mastery  over  existence.  It  matters 
not  at  all  what  material  be  used,  so  long  as  it  is 
used  to  give  the  complete  satisfaction,  the  final 
employment,  to  imaginative  desire ;  for  that 
brings  consciousness  to  its  highest  sense  of 
mastery.  What  does  matter  is  the  form  given 
to  the  material ;  it  can  only  be  by  a  rigorous 
and  exquisite  order  that  the  metaphysic  of  art, 
the  ethically  formed  sense  of  temporal  things 
irresistibly  wielded  by  eternal  things,  can  become 
expressed  and  symbolized  throughout  the  whole 

21 


THOMAS    HARDY 

of  a  work  of  art.  There  are  no  novels  like 
Thomas  Hardy's  for  perfection  of  form ;  and 
this  is  the  sign  of  the  inward  perfection  the 
novel  has  taken  from  his  hands. 

It  was  important  to  insist,  even  at  the  risk  of 
some  tedium,  on  what  Mr.  Hardy  has  done  for 
the  novel.  He  has  made  it  adequate  for  the 
high  position  to  which  man  has  latterly  elevated 
it  among  the  arts.  To  go  back  to  the  fabulous 
allegory  with  which  this  chapter  began,  it  is 
now  not  only  capable  of  that  judicious  flattery 
required  of  a  royal  confidant,  but  also  capable 
of  giving  the  most  serious  advice  that  man's 
occasions  can  demand.  These  two  functions  of 
viziership,  indeed,  have  become  inextricable. 
The  flattery  of  art  begins  in  rendering  the  mere 
delight  in  taking  part  in  existence  ;  but  it  comes 
to  a  strong  persuasion  to  accept,  and  at  last  to 
delight  in,  the  tragic  ground-bass  which  keenly 
civilized  consciousness  always  hears  accompany- 
ing the  tune  of  the  world.1  This  delight  in 
tragedy  must,  naturally,  be  of  an  aesthetic 
nature ;  its  perfection  can  only  come  from  giving 
some  form  of  art  to  the  relation  between  known 
experience  and  a  conception  of  originating 
reality ;   it   can  only    come,  in   fact,    from   the 

1  See  the  famous  description  of  Egdon  Heath  with  which  The 
Return  of  the  Native  opens,  especially  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  eighth 
paragraphs. 

22 


INTRODUCTORY 

ultimate  satisfaction  of  imaginative  desire.  It 
is  by  no  means  necessary  that  the  consequent 
metaphysic  of  an  art  should  be  universally 
accepted  outside  the  art.  The  fact  that  we 
cannot  nowadays  altogether  accept  the  meta- 
physic of  Prometheus  Bound  has  little  result 
on  the  nobility  of  its  effect.  We  have  a  right 
to  demand  no  more  than  that  while  we  are 
immersed  in  an  art,  and  giving  ourselves  up  to 
it,  everything  therein  shall  work  together  to 
make  us  at  the  conclusion  apprehend  the  meta- 
physic dominating  the  whole,  a  perfect  con- 
gruence of  the  rhythm  of  seen  things  with  an 
imagined  rhythm  of  unseen  reality  ;  thereby  the 
human  formative  desire  reaches  some  finality 
of  expression ;  the  faculty  which  underlies 
cognition  (its  imperfect  activity)  attains  in  such 
art  to  the  perfection  of  activity. 

We  have  not  yet  the  perspective  which  will 
enable  us  to  say  how  much  of  this  achievement 
is  due  to  the  personal  genius  of  Thomas  Hardy, 
and  how  much  to  the  spirit  of  the  time.  But 
certainly  the  achievement  sorts  well  with  the 
latter.  If  ever  fiction  could  arrive  at  the  full 
spiritual  stature  of  an  art,  this  would  be  the 
time  for  it ;  for  to-day,  when  the  mind  has  little 
safety  in  tradition,  an  art  which  can  achieve 
formation  and  human  symbolization  of  some 
speculative    metaphysic   is   obviously   required. 

23 


THOMAS   HARDY 

Thomas  Hardy,  however,  has  not  done  this 
merely  as  a  novelist ;  though  the  quality  of  his 
contribution  to  fiction,  to  the  dominant  art  of 
the  day,  needed  special  emphasis  in  this  introduc- 
tion. It  may  well  turn  out  that,  in  absolute 
value,  his  greatest  work  is  The  Dynasts,  which 
is  described  as  an  "  epic  drama  "  ;  but  it  will  be 
convenient  in  the  sequel  to  treat  of  this  tre' 
mendous  thing  separately  from  the  rest,  though 
it  is  certainly,  in  spirit,  the  climax  of  all  the 
works — novels,  short  stories,  and  poems — which 
had  preceded  it  in  publication. 


24 


II 

CHARACTERISTICS 

It  will  not  be  supposed  that  the  contention  just 
put  forward  is  meant  to  include  all  Thomas 
Hardy's  novels ;  but  since  we  find  that,  where 
the  contention  is  fully  justified,  the  novels  are 
works  of  tragic  purport,  we  may  conclude  that  a 
tragic  apprehension  of  the  world  is  a  profound 
characteristic  of  Hardy's  mind.:  for  these  are 
the  novels  in  which  his  mind  has  been  most 
completely  liberated  into  expression.  The 
obvious  quality  of  Hardy's  tragedy  is  that  it 
does  not  begin  in  the  persons  who  are  most 
concerned  in  it ;  it  is  an  invasion  into  human 
consciousness  of  the  general  tragedy  of  existence, 
which  thereby  puts  itself  forth  in  living  symbols. 
We  assuredly  do  not  feel  Hardy's  tragic  charac- 
ters to  be  mere  puppets  jerked  by  a  malicious 
fate ;  were  it  so,  indeed,  they  would  miss  an 
essential  condition  of  tragedy.  There  is  a  well- 
known  Russian  symphony  which  is  supposed  to 
exhibit  the  idea  of  a  supernal  fate  enjoying  its 
leisure  by  deliberately  wrecking  human  happi- 

25 


THOMAS   HARDY 

ness  ;  and  some  hasty  criticism  has  sometimes 
assumed  this  sort  of  sinister  interference  as  the 
fate  in  Hardy's  tragedy.  But  he  is  far  enough 
from  such  savage  or  childish  metaphysics. 
Neither  has  he  anything  comparable  with  the 
moralized  destiny  of  Greek  tragedy,  ready  to 
avenge  any  violence  to  the  prescribed  symmetry 
of  mortal  affairs ;  nor  is  his  fate  at  all  like  the 
figure  which  unexpectedly  and  dreadfully  "knocks 
at  the  door,"  but  nevertheless  can  be  overcome 
by  an  exultation  in  C  major.  It  is,  indeed,  not 
an  activity  at  all,  this  tragic  fate  in  Hardy's 
novels ;  it  is  a  condition  of  activity.  The 
general,  measureless  process  of  existence,  wherein 
all  activity  is  included,  cares  nothing,  in  working 
itself  out,  for  the  needs  and  desires  of  individual 
existence ;  the  only  relation  between  the  two 
(but  it  is  an  utterly  unavoidable  relation)  is  that 
in  the  long  run  the  individual  must  obey  the 
general.  The  main  stream  of  tendency  has  an 
ultimate  power  over  all  the  vortices  within  it. 
It  is  a  state  of  affairs  which  is,  of  course, 
especially  unfortunate  for  consciously  sensitive 
human  creatures  who  have  the  additional  ill-luck 
to  be  firmly  persuaded  that  their  desires  must 
have  some  creative  value,  some  power  of  modi- 
fying the  worldly  process.  In  fact,  the  very 
faculty  of  formative  desire  which  in  art  actually 
does  master  the  world,  into  a  sort  of  cognition 

26 


CHARACTERISTICS 

sublimated  by  will  and  feeling,  is,  in  Hardy's  art, 
the  staple  of  his  tragedy  ;  since  without  this 
individual  desire,  which  ordinary  (i.e.  extra- 
artistic)  experience  must  leave  inevitably  un- 
satisfied, existence  could  not  be  supposed  to  have 
an  altogether  tragic  significance.  Human  desire 
must  therefore  be  at  best  an  irony ;  when  com- 
pletely wrought  into  artistic  form  it  must  appear 
as  tragedy.  This  conception  is  characteristic  of 
all  Hardy's  work ;  though  quite  evident  only  in 
the  greatest,  the  most  tragic  novels,  it  underlies 
also  even  those  which  may  properly  be  called 
comedy.  We  never  feel  the  characters  to  be 
isolated  in  a  purely  human  world  ;  the  conditions 
of  their  being,  and  their  being  itself,  are  always 
engaged  (as  Hardy's  architectural  language  might 
put  it)  with  an  immense  background  of  measure- 
less fatal  processes,  a  moving,  supporting  dark- 
ness more  or  less  apparent ;  it  may  be  only 
hinted  at,  but  it  is  always  to  be  felt. 

In  appears  that,  in  prose  fiction,  such  a  con- 
ception as  this  may  be  tolerably  expressed  only 
through  the  symbolism  of  a  human  action ; 
Hardy's  triumph  is  that  he  has,  in  several  in- 
stances, made  of  this  limited  symbolism  a  com- 
pletely efficient  expression.  But  where  the 
verbal  medium  is  the  far  more  cogent  one  of 
poetry,  a  closer  and  more  direct  formation  of  this 
basic   idea   becomes   easily   tolerable.     Accord- 

27 


THOMAS   HARDY 

ingly,  we  find  that  in  The  Dynasts,  as  well  as  in 
several  lyrics,  what  in  the  novels  is  only  a  con- 
dition of  activity,  has  come  to  be  imagined  as 
itself  an  activity,  even  as  an  anthropomorphic 
activity.  There  is  no  supposition  of  a  fate  which 
attempts  to  dislocate  or  interfere  with  earthly 
business ;  simply,  the  unswerving  perpetual 
necessity  of  the  world  becomes  the  utterance  of 
some  power  which  is  humanly  appreciable  ;  some 
explanation — that  is,  some  formation — is  even 
attempted  of  its  ruthlessness,  its  fearful  careless- 
ness of  what  it  inflicts  on  harmless  individual 
desire.  Thus,  in  "  'Ayiwrw  6e<w,"  it  is  imagined 
as  a  species  of  labour,  but  of  something 

"  labouring  ail-unknowingly, 
Like  one  whom  reveries  numb." 

This  may  not  be  very  satisfactory  to  the 
philosopher ;  but  poetically  it  is  a  remarkable 
idea,  and  in  The  Dynasts  is  used  with  extra- 
ordinary effect.  The  chapter  on  that  poem  will 
deal  with  this  matter  more  narrowly. 

This  basic  conception  may  possibly  be  called 
pessimism.  But  it  is  pessimism  very  different 
from  that  splenetic  kind  professed  by  diseases 
like  Strindberg  or  Huysmans.  For  it  is  capable 
of  tragedy  ;  and  tragedy  is  not,  as  the  newspapers 
seem  to  think,  something  just  sorrowful  or  dis- 
tressing; it  is  a  unity  of  several  elements,  and 

28 


CHARACTERISTICS 

that  which  is  grievous  is  but  one  of  them.  It  is 
true  that  in  Hardy's  later  work  some  suggestions 
are  developed  which  are  undoubtedly  and 
dismally  pessimistic.  One  of  the  worst  is  that 
horrible  suicidal  small  boy  in  Jude  the  Obscure, 
who  was  "  the  outcome  of  new  views  of  life,"  and 
typified  "  the  coming  universal  wish  not  to  live." 
Similar,  but  less  painful,  is  the  description  of 
Jude  himself:  "  He  was  the  sort  of  man  who 
was  born  to  ache  a  good  deal  before  the  fall  of 
the  curtain  upon  his  unnecessary  life  should 
signify  that  all  was  well  with  him  again." l  But 
these  are  not  tragic  feelings,  for  there  is  no 
tragedy  where  there  is  no  resistance.  Jude  does 
indeed  ache ;  but  his  resistance  is  magnificent, 
and  so  also  is  his  tragedy.  His  death  was 
certainly  desirable  in  the  end,  but  not  until  he 
had  passionately  striven.  However,  these 
genuinely  pessimistic  notions  are  flaws  in  a  tragic 
imagination  of  life ;  but  not  here  very  consider- 
able. 

Given,  then,  such  a  basic  conception  of  neces- 
sity as  I  have  been  indicating,  the  first  thing 
required  in  order  to  turn  it  into  tragedy  is 
human  resistance.  Without  resistance,  indeed, 
the  current  of  necessity  could  never  be  sym- 
bolized at  all;  just  as  an  electric  current  must 

1  "  Lieta  no,  ma  sicura 

Dell'  antico  dolor." — Leopardi. 

29 


THOMAS   HARDY 

pass  through  some  resistance  to  become  apparent 
in  incandescence.  And  tragedy  plainly  requires 
further,  that  the  resistance  be  of  some  nobility 
and  dignity  ;  for  tragedy  must  be  a  thing  en- 
joyable in  itself.  Even  though  we  foresee,  as 
we  do  in  most  of  Hardy's  great  novels,  that  a 
towering  and  laudable  desire  is  doomed  to  be 
brought  level  with  futility,  we  profoundly  enjoy 
the  brave  quality  of  the  assertion  of  the  desire. 
A  life  abject  in  sorrow  is  nothing  enjoyable, 
therefore  nothing  tragical.  Henchard,  Tess, 
and  Jude,  the  three  characters  in  the  Wessex 
Novels  who  endure  the  most  pitiless  destiny, 
are  never  in  the  least  abject.  This  destiny, 
however,  this  destroying,  or  levelling,  or  as- 
similating power,  is  not  merely  external  to  the 
characters  who  contend  with  it ;  that  would  be 
precluded  by  Hardy's  characteristic  conception 
of  necessity.  There  is,  certainly,  a  good  deal  of 
external  compulsion  in  the  working  out  of 
Hardy's  plots ;  and  it  sometimes  takes  the  form 
of  coincidence.  So  long  as  the  coincidence  is 
credible,  as  it  always  is  in  the  Wessex  Novels, 
there  can  be  no  objecting  to  it ;  something  of 
the  kind  is  no  doubt  necessary  to  the  artistic 
formation  of  experience.  Such  external  pres- 
sure, however,  is  always  far  less  important  to 
the  significance  of  the  whole  than  the  interior 
conflict.     The  main,  ruthless  stream  of  tendency, 

30 


CHARACTERISTICS 

which  the  characters  must  in  the  end  obey, 
exhibits  itself  not  only  around  but  in  the  char- 
acters themselves ;  only  thus  could  they  sym- 
bolize the  basic  conception  of  Hardy's  tragedy. 
They  have  in  them  some  weakness,  disability, 
inherited  instinct,  or  perhaps  some  error  in  the 
assertion  of  their  strength,  which  inevitably  be- 
comes the  chance  for  the  power  of  the  world 
finally  to  assert  itself  against  them.  This  is 
more  pathetic,  because  more  natural,  than  any 
tragic  interference  from  the  outside;  but  Hardy 
always  knows  how  to  mitigate  it  by  an  exquisite 
tenderness,  a  justice  of  mercy,  towards  his  own 
creations.  It  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  case  of 
his  women.  They  are,  on  the  whole,  disturbing 
and  even  sinister  agents  in  the  stories ;  but  no 
one  would  think  of  blaming  them  for  that ; 
it  is  their  fate,  not  their  fault — except,  perhaps, 
in  the  case  of  Arabella  in  Jude  the  Obscure, 
the  one  woman  to  whom  Hardy  seems  to  show 
animosity.  Neither  do  they  exist  as  personalities 
chiefly  by  virtue  of  male  affection  for  them,  as 
most  writers  who  have  believed  in  the  sinister 
efficiency  of  women  have  tried  to  make  out. 
They  do  not  simply  form  a  passive  characterless 
nucleus,  round  which  male  desire  crystallizes  in 
the  form  of  imagined  perfection,  to  become  in 
the  end  distracted  by  finding  there  is  nothing 
in  the  reality  of  womanhood  answering  to  the 

31 


THOMAS   HARDY 

ideal.1  Hardy's  women  exist  entirely  in  their 
own  right;  and  even  the  ruinous  fine  ladies 
in  Two  on  a  Tower  and  The  Woodlanders  are 
easily  forgiven  for  their  sufferings,  and  their 
helplessness  as  the  agents  of  a  tragic  destiny 
to  which  they  themselves  must  submit. 

It  hardly  needs  to  be  remarked,  that  true 
tragic  art  also  requires  substantiality  of  material ; 
that  is,  it  must  be  embodied  in  persons  entirely 
credible.  For  this,  observation  may  be  the  first 
thing  necessary ;  but  it  is  not  the  most  im- 
portant. The  process  of  "  getting  inside  other 
people's  skins "  is  a  very  subsidiary  part  of 
characterization.  It  does,  indeed,  narrowly  exer- 
cise the  power  out  of  which  all  characterization 
really  comes,  the  power  of  psychological  im- 
agination, stimulated  by  the  gestures  and  other 
externals  of  conduct  which  have  been  observed. 
But  mere  observation  is  a  small  thing  in  the 
fashioning  of  such  characters  as  Michael  Hen- 
chard  or  Sue  Bridehead :  lucid,  consistent,  full 
of  profound  but  clearly  seen  energies,  yet  capable 
of  exhibiting  actions  that  could  hardly  have 
been  predicted,  although,  when  they  do  occur, 

1  This  is  true  of  the  novels.  The  poems,  however,  give  at  least  one 
clear  expression  (The  Well-Beloved)  and  several  suggested  ones,  to 
this  notion,  the  ironical  counterpart  of  ideal  or  Platonic  love.  In  the 
novel  which  is  also  called  The  Well-Beloved,  the  point  is,  that  the 
idealized  women  are  not  nonentities,  but  insist  on  asserting  individual 
personality. 

32 


CHARACTERISTICS 

they  evidently  agree  with  the  rest  of  the  char- 
acter, unexpectedly  confirming  it ;  such  actions 
as  Sue's  jumping  out  of  window  to  avoid  her 
husband,  or  Henchard's  pinioning  one  of  his 
arms  when  he  prepared  for  a  fatal  wrestle  with 
the  hated  Farfrae.  Such  characters  are  the 
work,  not  of  observation,  but  of  a  great 
psychological  imagination,  self- controlled  by 
precisely  the  same  sense  of  form  as  that  which 
controls  the  whole  action.  There  is  a  kind  of 
characterization  which  is  entirely  made  of  evident 
consistency ;  this  is  the  kind  that  produces  the 
"  types  "  of  Jonson  and  Dickens — unquestion- 
ably a  noble  kind.  But  in  it  the  power  of 
observation  is  merely  improved,  energized,  by 
the  finer  power  of  psychological  imagination, 
the  latter  being  controlled  by  the  former.  On 
the  contrary,  the  characters  of  writers  like 
Hardy  completely  dissolve  what  has  been  ob- 
served in  the  more  eager,  more  exciting  power 
of  imagination.  If  this  be  not  controlled  by  a 
masterful  sense  of  form,  such  characters  will 
probably  consist  simply  of  supple  vagaries,  as 
indeed  they  do  in  many  plays  of  the  Elizabethan 
period,  the  world's  richest  treasury,  so  far,  of 
psychological  imagination.  But  in  the  greatest 
playwrights  of  that  period,  and  in  Thomas 
Hardy  and  a  few  other  novelists,  the  char- 
acterization is  rigorously  managed  by  the  neces- 
c  33 


THOMAS   HARDY 

sity  of  form  ;  so  that  what  is  seen  of  a  character, 
however  unexpected,  or  even  contradictory, 
must  always  be  felt  as  the  varying  process  of 
some  withdrawn  but  perfectly  defined  and  con- 
trolled source  of  personal  nature. 

There  is  a  special  kind  of  characterization  that 
is  sufficiently  rare  to  be  noted  ;  it  is  characteriza- 
tion in  groups  ;  the  invention  of  a  set  of  persons 
who,  while  retaining  marked  and  consistent  in- 
dividuality, combine  into  a  group  which  is  itself 
a  consistent  piece  of  psychology,  a  kind  of  com- 
munal personality  including  the  individuals. 
The  Wessex  Novels  have  two  exquisite  instances 
of  this,  both  used  as  backgrounds  of  contrasting 
comment  to  the  main  action :  the  unforgettable 
group  of  rustics  in  Far  from  the  Madding 
Crowd,  and — a  smaller  group,  only  pathetically 
humorous,  but  perfectly  devised,  an  invention 
of  as  sweet  a  sadness  as  anything  in  literature — 
the  group  of  milkmaids  at  Talbothays  in  Tess 
of  the  UUrbervilles.  This  faculty  of  grouped 
psychology  also  appears,  in  a  less  conspicuous 
degree,  in  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree,  The  Mayor 
of  Casterbridge,  and  fitfully  in  the  other  stories. 

It  is  likely  that  the  remaining  essential  charac- 
teristic of  tragedy  which  is  now  to  be  considered 
— the  characteristic  of  form — is  the  one  which 
gives  the  technique  of  Hardy's  art  its  greatest 
opportunity.     Without  doubt,  it  was  fortunate 

34 


CHARACTERISTICS 

that  a  writer  dealing  in  fundamental  propositions 
so  nearly  approaching  to  pessimism  (occasionally 
even,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  passing  over  into 
pessimism),  should  have  been  gifted  with  such 
an  extraordinary  power  of  artistic  form  ;  without 
this,  the  great  quality  of  human  resistance  in  his 
art  could  hardly  have  been  enough  to  make  a 
tragic  matter  of  his  conception  of  life  and  the 
world.  How  the  power  of  form  effects  this,  is 
easily  explicable.  For  tragedy— it  is  a  simple 
thing  sometimes  forgotten  in  theories — whatever 
else  it  may  be,  must,  in  some  way  or  another,  be 
profoundly  enjoyable.  And  the  formative  desire 
— the  desire  (it  has  many  names)  for  shapeliness, 
order,  symmetry,  completeness,  significance, 
definiteness — is  the  hungriest  lust  the  spirit 
possesses,  and  one  whose  satisfaction  yields  the 
deepest  enjoyment.  For  this  reason;  its  nourish- 
ment increases,  and  adds  a  sense  of  delighted 
mastery  to,  self-consciousness.  By  means  of 
this  formative  desire,  consciousness  has  all  its 
commerce  with  the  world.  But  the  endless 
welter  of  the  world,  however  formed  to  cognition 
and  idea,  will  not  itself  thoroughly  feed  the  desire. 
That  can  only  be  done  by  an  artistic  vision  of  the 
world,  the  representation  of  a  world  finally 
controlled  into  the  form  desired  by  the  human 
spirit.  Then,  while  we  are  spectators,  and  while 
clear    memory    of    the    spectacle     lasts,    self- 

35 


THOMAS    HARDY 

consciousness  is  delighted  with  mastery,  with 
the  sense  of  perfect  control  achieved  ;  the  whole 
event  of  life,  under  such  conditions,  is  to  be 
enjoyed,  even  the  tragical  event  of  life  ;  even  an 
art  which  has  for  subject  this  very  desire  for 
order  and  justice  baffled  eternally  in  the  affairs 
of  earthly  destiny,  even  such  an  art  will  give 
profound  enjoyment,  if  its  conduct,  the  manner 
of  its  representing,  greatly  pleases  this  inveterate 
desire. 

Such  an  art  is  Thomas  Hardy's.  External 
form  is  a  thing  sufficiently  noticeable  in  itself  to 
be  considered  separately,  and  it  is  most  con- 
veniently to  be  so  considered ;  although,  as  was 
suggested  in  the  first  chapter,  it  is  inseparable 
from  a  formal  conception  of  the  subject.  Form 
in  art  is  not  an  imposition  from  without,  not  a 
thrusting  of  material  into  an  arbitrary  circum- 
ference ;  it  is  the  result  of  a  willing  obedience, 
given  by  all  the  materials,  to  a  presiding  interest. 
And  the  result  is  a  perfect  separation  from  the 
surrounding  disorder  of  the  world.  The  common 
bent  of  all  the  lines  of  interest,  all  tending  to 
"  come  full  circle,"  will  suffice  to  give  the  art  its 
completed  boundary.  Completeness  of  roundure, 
of  enclosure,  is  certainly  required  for  great  artistic 
formality  ;  for  if  the  periphery  of  a  work  of  art 
be  not  closed  in  the  work  itself,  if  it  can  only  be 
completed   in  the  supposition  of  the  spectator, 

36 


CHARACTERISTICS 

perfect  ease  of  attention  is  missing,  and  con- 
sequently also  that  surrounding  quiescence  in  the 
spectator's  mind  which  the  sense  of  achieved 
mastery  needs  in  order  to  become  absolute  and 
unquestioning.  This  is,  of  course,  most  naturally 
evident  in  arts  wherein  form  is  a  visible  pattern. 
The  Athenian  statue  of  Harmodius  and  Aristogei- 
ton,  for  instance,  splendid  and  exciting  though  it 
be,  consists  of  lines  of  interest  which  all  lead  to 
something  outside  itself ;  the  containing  curve  of 
interest  is  a  parabola,  which  must  be  violently 
closed  in  the  attention  of  the  spectator,  by 
supposing  Hipparchus,  the  victim  of  that  superb 
anger.  The  thing  has  not  been  isolated  from  the 
world,  which  means  that  formative  control  is  in- 
complete. Whereas  the  Discobolus,  a  statue  of 
much  lower  emotional  significance,  gives  never- 
theless a  more  certain  sense  of  mastery,  because 
no  line  in  it  has  any  tendency  to  lead  either 
mind  or  eye  outside  the  orderly  system  of  the 
whole ;  everything  bends  towards  something  in 
the  system  ;  the  whole  thing  achieves  a  precise 
circumference,  and  is  a  detached  completed 
sphere  of  artistic  command  over  life.  But  an 
exactly  similar  sensation  is  caused  by  the  greatest 
of  the  Wessex  Novels.  They  are  detached  and 
separate,  held  within  formal  boundaries  made  by 
the  always  inward-curving  tendency  of  the  lines 
whereon  attention  is  led  ;  from  beginning  to  end 

37 


THOMAS   HARDY 

nothing  occurs  to  seduce  interest  away  from  the 
order  of  the  whole.  And  form  of  this  kind, 
when  it  governs  such  great  passions  and  largely 
working  characters  and  unruly  conflicts  as  Hardy 
gives  us,  is  more  than  a  fine  satisfaction ;  it  is 
itself  an  exhilaration,  not  easily  paralleled  in  the 
art  of  fiction  hitherto,  perhaps  only  in  the  art 
of  Flaubert  and  Turgenev.  Plot  is,  of  course, 
included  in  form ;  and  the  lucid  intricacy  of 
Hardy's  plots,  their  richness  of  incident,  yet  the 
complete  absence  of  squandering  in  them — these 
obvious  qualities  have  roused  admiration  from 
the  first.  The  smallest  occurrence  is  to  be 
marked  ;  for  one  feels  the  strict  governance  of 
form  so  strongly — though  doubtless  uncon- 
sciously, until  we  have  gone  far  enough  in  the 
book  to  see  its  shape  evidently  making — that 
nothing  seems  capable  of  being  insignificant,  of 
failing  to  influence  the  process  of  the  whole. 
This  feeling  is  probably  what  many  have 
described  as  the  sense  of  fatality  in  Hardy's 
novels ;  it  is  simply  a  tribute  to  their  form. 
Hardy  delights  in  setting  a  great  disturbing  train 
of  events  on  their  way  by  means  of  a  trivial  or 
ludicrous  beginning  ;  Tess's  tragedy,  for  instance, 
is  set  going  by  an  antiquary's  pedantic  whim  of 
addressing  "plain  Jack  Durbeyfield,  the  haggler," 
as  Sir  John  D'Urberville ;  and  even  the 
immense     business     of     The     Dynasts     really 

38 


CHARACTERISTICS 

all  begins  in  King  George's  ridiculous  pig- 
headed refusal  to  correspond  with  Napoleon  as 
an  equal.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  mention 
similar  examples  of  incidental  events,  occur- 
ring near  the  beginning  of  the  story,  which  the 
sense  of  masterful  formality  in  the  work  com- 
pels us  to  take  at  far  more  than  their  face 
value.  Oak's  chance  meeting  with  Fanny  Robin 
in  the  darkness  is  striking  enough  to  serve  us  here. 
"  Gabriel's  fingers  alighted  on  the  young  woman's 
wrist.  It  was  beating  with  a  throb  of  tragic  in- 
tensity. He  had  frequently  felt  the  same  quick, 
hard  beat  in  the  femoral  artery  of  his  lambs 
when  overdriven."  The  brief  description  of  this 
meeting  does  not  differ  in  texture  from  the 
occurrences  which  surround  it ;  yet  it  is  im- 
possible not  to  perceive  here  some  vague  signifi- 
cance of  tragedy.  And  the  particular  interest 
thus  excited  gradually  weaves  itself  into  the 
story  until  it  becomes  one  of  the  master- strands ; 
it  is  like  a  theme  in  music,  which  increases  from 
its  first  quiet  statement,  through  a  persistent 
suggestion  of  counterpoint  to  other  more  evident 
themes,  until  at  last  it  emerges  into  domination 
over  the  rest,  in  that  greatly  pathetic  moment 
when  Bathsheba  uncovers  the  dead  body  of  her 
innocent  rival.  The  slow  curving  of  several 
lines  of  interest,  into  such  a  unity  of  climax  as 
this,  gives  a  sense  of  an  almost  physical  beauty 

39 


THOMAS   HARDY 

of  form.  Again,  in  The  Mayor  of  Casterbridge, 
the  scene  in  the  tent  of  the  furmity-seller  is  an 
obvious  beginning  of  tragedy  ;  but  the  economy 
which  gives  the  haggish  furmity-seller  herself  a 
further  crucial  intervention  at  two  moments  in 
Henchard's  tragedy,  produces  a  wonderful  sense 
of  perfect  formality.  All  these  instances  belong 
to  the  special  kind  of  form  called  plot ;  but 
strictness  of  plot  is,  with  Hardy,  only  a  sign  of 
strictness  of  general  form.  This  is  where  he 
has  so  far  proved  to  be  beyond  imitation.  A 
closely  wrought  plot,  at  once  rich  and  economi- 
cal, is  not  a  thing  that  needs  to  be  copied  from 
anyone ;  it  is  too  obviously  desirable.  But 
attempts  have  been  made  to  reproduce  Hardy's 
effect  of  a  passionate,  intricate,  complete  human 
event  thrown  against  the  simplicity  and  de- 
liberateness  of  the  earth ;  to  reproduce  also  the 
marriage  of  these  elements  into  a  metaphysical 
unity,  "elix'd  of  all."  And  it  is  just  in  the 
strict  coherence  of  general  form  that  these 
attempts  have  so  far  failed  of  the  desired  effect. 
The  plots  have  been  well  invented;  the  contrast- 
ing background  of  earth  well  described ;  the 
metaphysic  tolerably  conceived.  But  that  in- 
comparable fusion  of  the  elements  has  been 
grievously  missing,  and  therewith  the  whole 
effect.  It  is  not  a  case  for  recipes  ;  no  ingenious 
compounding  of  analysed  ingredients  will  serve 

40 


CHARACTERISTICS 

this  turn,  but  only  a  most  unusual  formative 
imagination,  able  to  devise  a  complete  system 
of  human  and  unhuman  things,  which  will 
supply  from  its  own  resources  all  required 
relationships,  and  become  insphered  by  its  own 
firm  shapeliness,  an  ordered  fusion  of  control 
isolated  from  the  world  of  half-control  and  im- 
perfect form.  The  stock  instance  of  the  chemical 
mingling  of  human  with  unhuman  stuff  in  the 
Wessex  Novels,  is  the  umber  grain  of  Egdon 
Heath  which  runs  through  The  Return  of  the 
Native;  the  potency  issuing  darkly  out  of  that 
space  of  desolation,  and  staining  with  inevitable 
tragedy  the  persons  that  move  within  it.  And 
to  say  that  the  characters  seem  unable  to  escape 
from  that  queer  potency,  that  they  are  strangely 
grasped  by  its  subtle  compulsion,  is  merely  to 
say  that  the  art  which  contains  them  is  a  thing 
complete  in  itself,  perfectly  supplying  its  own 
relationships,  isolated  by  the  strength  of  its 
form  from  the  rest  of  the  world. 

Hardy's  manhood  began  with  artistic  training; 
and  with  training  in  the  art  which  is  the  type, 
for  all  the  others,  of  severity  of  form — ecclesias- 
tical architecture.  For  this  is  an  art  whose 
existence  is  unthinkable  without  absolute  separa- 
tion, by  formality,  from  natural  disorder.  That 
such  training  is  the  cause  of  Hardy's  success  in 
controlling  fiction  to  completely  unified  form, 

41 


THOMAS    HARDY 

is  an  assertion  which  perhaps  only  a  modern 
scientific  biographer  would  support.  Still,  though 
this  success  comes  from  a  native  endowment — 
simply  from  an  exceptional  vigour  of  man's 
peculiar  courage,  the  formative  will — and  might 
very  probably  have  managed  without  a  training 
in  real  (instead  of  in  metaphorical)  architec- 
tonics ;  yet  such  a  training  could  hardly  have 
been  anything  but  wonderfully  fortunate.  It 
must  have  made  the  formative  will  conscious  of 
its  own  powers ;  strengthened  the  assurance 
which  it  requires  for  liberated,  masterful  enjoy- 
ment of  itself;  finally  made  it  incapable  of  that 
timidity  which  so  remarkably  cripples  a  deal  of 
the  drama,  fiction,  and  music  of  to-day.  Against 
that  timidity — call  it  "  realism "  or  "  impres- 
sionism "  or  what  you  will — the  Wessex  Novels 
stand,  a  great  rebuke ;  and  the  inevitable 
reaction  against  it,  which  should  be  beginning 
its  heyday  before  the  twentieth  century  is  well 
past  its  third  climacteric,  will  certainly  see  in 
Hardy's  consistent  achievement  a  most  cor- 
roborative prophecy. 

It  may  be  thought  that  there  has  so  far  been 
an  undue  insistence  on  the  tragic  elements  in 
Hardy's  work.  But  Ave  have  not  only  the  novels 
to  consider.  In  these,  to  be  sure,  taking  them 
as  a  whole,  the  tragedy  might  perhaps  be  con- 
sidered as  a  characteristic  of  less  than  paramount 

42 


CHARACTERISTICS 

importance ;  though  never  as  a  subordinate 
characteristic.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  the 
epic-drama  of  The  Dynasts  must  be  added  to 
the  novels  if  we  are  to  have  Hardy's  complete 
speculation  over  life.  And  the  effect  of  The 
Dynasts,  with  its  great  drama  of  human  be- 
wilderment persistently  belittled  by  the  back- 
ground of  tragic  metaphysic,  is  unquestionably 
to  make  the  tragedy  in  the  novels  stand  out  as 
their  real  purport ;  I  mean  that,  after  reading 
The  Dynasts,  we  are  bound  to  emphasize,  in 
our  recollection  of  the  novels  as  a  whole,  that 
portion  of  their  substance  which  plainly  confirms 
the  main  tendency  of  the  epic-drama ;  since  in 
this  great  poem  Hardy's  idea  of  the  world  has 
evidently  achieved  its  deepest  candour  of  ex- 
pression. But  next  to  the  tragedy  of  his  work, 
and  all  that  this  implies,  the  greatest  character- 
istics are  no  doubt  those  which  would  first 
appeal  to  the  desultory  reader  of  Hardy's  books 
— their  humour,  and  their  beautiful  pictures  of 
country  life  and  countryside.  These  never 
appear  as  ornamental  foils  to  brighten  the 
tragedy ;  though  their  contrasting  effect  has 
had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  admiration 
they  have  received.  They  are  auxiliary  expres- 
sions of  the  main  dominating  spirit  of  Hardy's 
work,  whose  thorough  expression  proves  in  the 
long  run  to  be  tragic.     The  English  temper,  as 

43 


THOMAS   HARDY 

may  be  seen  from  its  drama,  its  most  instinctive 
utterance,  prefers  an  art  which  can  press  into 
one  obedience  a  number  of  very  diverse  ele- 
ments ;  and  for  the  sake  of  the  diversity  it  is 
willing  even  to  risk  the  effective  control  of  a 
single  presiding  interest — as  may  also  be  seen 
in  our  drama.  But  Hardy  never  appears  to  run 
this  risk ;  his  humour  and  his  country  life  have 
no  tendency  to  become  mere  agreeable  "relief"  ; 
and  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd,  which  elabo- 
rates the  utmost  diversity  of  material,  gives  as 
strong  an  impression  of  singleness  of  inmost 
motive  as  the  unaltering,  steadily  increasing 
tragedy  of  Jude  the  Obscure.  And  it  was 
therefore  only  to  be  expected  that  these  auxil- 
iary modes  of  expression — the  humour  and  the 
rusticity— should  become  less  evident,  or  at 
least  less  evidently  contrasting,  as  the  tragic 
expression  becomes  more  insistent  and  more 
effective.  The  humour  lessens  noticeably,  and 
its  irony  turns  harsh  and  bitter ;  the  background 
of  nature  seems  to  exist  chiefly  as  a  spectacular 
variation  of  human  moods. 

Humour  is  the  least  analysable  of  qualities. 
A  good  part  of  those  delicious  rural  conversations 
in  the  Wessex  Novels  seems  to  appeal  by  the 
mere  force  of  naivete  ;  the  disconcerting  candour 
of  minds  that  simply  accept,  without  gloss,  the 
universal  things  of  which  culture  is  discreetly 

44 


CHARACTERISTICS 

shy  ;  at  the  same  time  labouring  the  significance 
of  things  that  cause  a  by  no  means  universal 
concern.  The  deputation  of  Mellstock  quire, 
which  waits  on  the  new  vicar,  is  astonished  when 
he  pities  the  gentle  idiocy  of  skeletal  Thomas 
Leaf;  the  poor  fool  is  "silly  by  nater  and  could 
never  get  fat,"  and  "  Bless  you,  he  don't  mind  it 
a  bit,  if  you  don't,  sir  " ;  what  is  the  good  of  re- 
gretting that  a  man  was  born  with  half  his  wits  ? 
But  when  the  vicar's  chin  bursts  out  bleeding 
where  his  razor  had  slipt,  then  something  has 
happened  which  is  worth  discussing.  There  is 
always  amusement  in  this  kind  of  thing ;  but  a 
mind  habitually  using  it  needs  to  have  some 
unusual  depth  of  sympathy  in  it,  if  such  humour 
is  to  avoid  a  touch  of  sneering.  Hardy  seldom 
lacks  sympathy  for  his  characters  ;  and  his  rustics 
are  especially  dear  to  him.  He  gives  them  some- 
thing firm  and  oddly  dignified  behind  their 
plentiful  absurdity.  Not  only  his  naturals  have 
it ;  but  even  his  silly  old  men,  Joseph  Poorgrass 
and  Grandfer  Cantle,  have  that  in  them  which 
makes  laughter  stop  short  of  sneering.  We 
laugh  at  these  country  folks'  expressions,  some- 
times chiefly  because  it  is  so  evidently  laborious 
to  them  to  express  themselves  at  all.  Their  lives 
seem  to  go  inwardly  in  such  a  way  that  words 
are  of  scant  use  to  them ;  and  when  it  comes  to 
giving  thought  some  outward  shape  of  words, 

45 


THOMAS   HARDY 

they  endeavour  to  contrive  this  by  a  sort  of 
general  attack  on  language.  They  hope  that  a 
great  many  inappropriate  phrases  will  somehow 
suggest  the  appropriate  thought.  And  even 
while  they  are  so  entertaining  us,  we  are  feeling 
that  their  lives  are  more  significant  than  speech 
can  ever  be.  Their  thought  is  not  like  that  of 
the  starved  brains  of  townees,  too  poor  to  supply 
language  with  its  material ;  it  is  too  full  of  an 
undisturbed  wealth  that  they  do  not  quite  know 
how  to  handle.  But  after  all,  the  epithet  that  is 
commonly  applied  to  Hardy's  humour  is  the  best 
for  it ;  it  is  Shakespearean.  In  richness,  in  energy, 
in  absurdity,  in  disconcertingness,  it  comes 
nearer  to  Shakespeare's  than  any  other ;  and 
especially  is  it  near  to  Shakespeare's  in  keeping, 
after  all  such  lists  of  qualities  have  been  made 
out,  its  essential  quality  unanalysed. 

Hardy  has  nothing  like  wit  in  his  writings  ; 
nothing  successful,  at  any  rate.  His  humour  is 
altogether  a  property  of  his  rustics,  and  his 
cultivated  people  are  not  noticeably  entertaining, 
whether  they  try  for  wit  or  humour.  The  fact 
is  typical  of  the  limitation  of  his  art  in  its 
material,  one  of  its  most  remarkable  character- 
istics. In  his  finest  tragedy,  as  well  as  in  his 
vividest  humour,  he  is  pretty  strictly  bound 
within  a  quite  definite  class  of  persons ;  though 
it  is  a  class,  certainly,  which  has  so  much  possi- 

46 


CHARACTERISTICS 

bility  of  human  variety  in  it  that  there  is  no 
question  of  this  limitation  crippling  his  art  at  all. 
Indeed,  it  is  hardly  felt  as  a  limitation  except 
when  he  is  working  outside  this  class.  Rustics, 
in  a  wide  sense  of  the  word — persons  who  win 
their  living  by  some  direct  dealing  with  the 
earth — form  the  natural  material  of  his  art. 
This  kind  of  humanity  has  been  fashioned  by 
him  into  an  aesthetic  language  of  profound 
expressiveness ;  but  persons  of  culture,  refine- 
ment, mental  artifice,  do  not  prove  for  him  a 
biddable  medium.  No  one,  to  be  sure,  would 
ever  deplore  the  lack  in  his  novels  of  a  back- 
ground of  delicate  or  polite  manners  ;  the  books 
are  too  splendidly  decorated  with  the  vivid 
manners  and  elemental  habits  of  rusticity  for 
that.  The  tremendous  force  in  the  slow  lives  of 
country  folks  has  never  been  so  shrewdly  nor  so 
unostentatiously  exhibited  as  in  the  Wessex 
Novels.  It  is  kept  so  quiet,  though  its  presence 
is  so  plainly  and  so  constantly  to  be  felt,  that 
when  it  leaps  out  undisguised  into  a  sort  of 
suddenly  furious  candour  (as  in  those  scenes  of 
wild,  tireless,  all-night  dancing),  the  effect  is  like 
a  theophany. 

But  should  this  so  obvious  limitation  to  one 
firmly  defined  range  of  human  material  be  con- 
sidered in  theory  as  a  serious  disability  in  Hardy's 
fiction  ?     If  we  admit  that  the  success  of  his 

47 


THOMAS    HARDY 

work  depends  on  strict  choice  of  a  certain  kind 
of  society,  does  that  mean  that  we  must  admit 
his  failure  to  be  a  "  universal "  artist  ?  It  seems  to 
me  that  to  say  yes  to  these  questions  is  to  con- 
fuse the  material  of  art  with  the  art  itself.  A 
writer  may  deal  with  a  much  more  multifarious 
humanity  than  Hardy  does,  and  yet,  I  think,  fall 
far  short  of  being  as  universal  in  the  result  as  he 
is.  Taking  physical  and  mental  experience  as 
the  condition  of  art,  what  the  artist  has  to  do 
is  to  form  this  condition  into  some  image  of 
spiritual  experience,  which  for  the  most  part  is 
spiritual  desire,  its  good  or  bad  success.  And  if, 
as  Hardy  does,  he  form  an  image  capable  of 
representing  some  spiritual  experience  which  may 
truly  be  called  universal — if  he  represent  thereby 
some  serious  variety  of  the  spiritual  attitude  to 
worldly  fate  which  is  inevitable  to-day — it  seems 
that  we  have  no  right  to  quarrel  with  the  con- 
dition, however  confined,  wherein  that  result  was 
formed.  Moreover,  in  the  matter  of  sheer  art, 
this  limitation  of  his  turns  out  a  decided  advan- 
tage. It  is  a  capital  instance  of  art's  honourable 
old  trick  of  making  a  virtue  of  necessity.  No 
doubt  the  limitation  of  Hardy's  most  character- 
istic self-expression  to  the  lives  and  manners  and 
minds  of  country  folk  was,  originally,  an  obedience 
to  some  obscure  necessity  of  his  mind.  But 
consider  the  series  of  novels  in  which  his  genius 

48 


CHARACTERISTICS 

is  at  its  greatest,  finding  its  most  unquestionable 
utterance ;  consider,  that  is  to  say,  this  series : 
Under  the  Greenwood  Tree,  Far  from,  the 
Madding  Crowd,  The  Mayor  of  Casterbridge , 
The  Return  of  the  Native,  The  Woodlanders, 
Tess  of  the  Z)'  Urbervilles,  and  Jude  the  Obseure. 
These  seven  books  naturally  group  themselves 
into  a  single  whole ;  the  series  seems  itself  to 
become  a  work  of  art.  And  this  is  mainly 
because  the  uniformity  of  their  chief  material 
gives  to  these  seven  books  as  a  whole  that 
isolation  which  is  the  primary  aesthetic  quality. 
Similarity  of  purposive  inspiration  might  have 
suggested  this  isolation  of  several  books  into  one 
aesthetic  group ;  but  it  is  the  continuity  of 
material  that  really  effects  it.  So  the  originating 
necessity  becomes  the  admirable  artistic  virtue  of 
isolation ;  it  enables  the  series  of  Hardy's  great 
novels  to  assume  the  air  of  a  single  work  of  art. 
Thereby  each  of  these  seven  novels  has  a  greatly 
enhanced  value  for  the  reader  who  can  see  its 
place  as  a  component  of  the  whole  group ; 
almost  as  much  as  each  act  of  a  play  has  more 
than  its  intrinsic  significance  through  being  part 
of  the  whole  play. 

This  is  evidently  the  place  to  speak  briefly  of 
Hardy's  use  of  nature  in  his  novels ;  briefly,  be- 
cause this  quality  has  several  times  already  re- 
ceived its  full  share  of  examination.    Probably  it 
d  49 


THOMAS   HARDY 

is  the  most  famous  of  all  the  easily  distinguish- 
able qualities  in  the  novels.  When  Hardy's 
fiction  took  a  turn  disturbing  to  the  conscience 
of  the  great  English  public,  those  who  remained 
faithful,  if  a  trifle  dubious,  would  say,  "  But  at 
least  admire  the  descriptions  !  "  And  to  do  the 
objectors  justice,  they  usually  were  ready  to 
admire  the  descriptions.  The  thing  first  to  be 
noticed  here,  however  (it  has  already  been  men- 
tioned), is  that  these  descriptions  are  never 
detachable  ornament.  Even  such  elaborate 
accounts  as  those  of  Egdon  Heath,  and  of  the 
Vales  of  Blackmoor  and  Froom,  are  parts  not 
only  of  the  substance  but  of  the  action  of  the 
story.  Nature,  indeed,  in  Hardy's  fiction  is 
neither  an  abstraction  nor  a  scenic  setting,  but  a 
vast  impassive  organism,  living  her  own  im- 
mense life,  multitudinous  but  obscurely  unani- 
mous ;  and  the  strict  formality  of  the  art  could 
have  no  use  for  this  enormous  being  unless  it 
was  able  to  bear  some  part  in  the  fable,  whose 
event  becomes,  therefore,  an  affair  only  partially 
human.  There  is  wonderful  sensitiveness  to 
natural  beauty  and  grandeur  in  the  Wessex 
Novels  ;  but  there  is  a  good  deal  more.  There 
is  the  hard,  practical,  exact  knowledge  of 
nature's  workings  which  shepherds  and  farm 
labourers  must  have.  As  an  instance  of  this, 
and  of  the  exhibition  of  nature  actively  par- 

50 


CHARACTERISTICS 

ticipating  in  the  story,  the  presages  of  the  storm 
in  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd  (Chapter 
xxxvi.)  would  do  better  than  the  celebrated 
descriptions  just  mentioned.  Nature,  in  fact, 
holds  the  human  action  in  solution ;  and  this 
does  more  efficiently  whatever  can  be  done  by 
using  nature  as  a  scenic  setting — in  the  way, 
for  instance,  of  spacing  the  action  broadly  in 
the  open  air. 

Here  also,  in  Hardy's  use  of  nature,  there  is 
obvious  limitation ;  in  this  case  plainly  deliber- 
ate. The  novels  never  trespass  outside  Wessex. 
It  would  seem  that  this  is  a  conscious  result  of 
that  instinct  for  form  with  which  this  chapter 
has  been  chiefly  concerned.  For  it  cannot  be 
questioned  that  this  limitation  of  locality  power- 
fully seconds  the  limitation  of  human  material 
in  causing  that  sense  of  admirable  aesthetic  isola- 
tion when  we  consider  the  Wessex  Novels  (or 
rather  the  best  of  them)  as  a  whole ;  a  body  of 
work  that  stands  singular  and  by  itself.  And 
besides  giving  this  desirable  sense  of  an  art  con- 
centrated within  strict  boundaries,  this  limitation 
of  locality  is  fortunate  in  another  respect.  Just  as 
the  human  material,  which  the  novels  most  suc- 
cessfully use,  is  a  class  of  greater  variety  than 
any  other  well-defined  section  of  society,  and 
is  moreover  through  all  its  varieties  obviously 
suitable  to  the  special  kind  of  tragedy  required 

51 


THOMAS    HARDY 

by  Hardy's  genius ;  so  also  is  it  with  Wessex, 
with  the  country  in  which  the  novels  are 
imaginatively  placed.  Such  changeable  land- 
scape is  hardly  to  be  found  anywhere  else  in 
England ;  and  yet  there  is  a  feeling  of  identity 
running  through  all  the  changes.  In  a  single 
day  you  may  walk  through  a  mass  of  turbulent 
little  hills,  low  but  of  good  upstanding  attitude, 
gashed  into  innumerable  valleys,  pockets  of  rich 
soil ;  through  straggling  upland  hamlets,  well 
known  to  the  winds,  and  through  compact, 
orderly,  lowland  villages,  coloured  with  gardens 
and  climbing  flowers ;  through  spaces  of  deso- 
late brown  heath,  and  through  wide  flat  vales  of 
almost  oppressive  fertility,  vivid  meadows  that 
seem  to  shine  against  your  eyes,  watered  with 
clear  rivers  full  of  fat  trout  and  golden  clotes ; 
until  you  arrive  at  great  stretches  of  smooth 
downland,  and  so  come  to  a  coast  of  abrupt 
grandeur.  Through  all  this  variety  flows  a  cer- 
tain simple  nobility  of  design,  which  unifies  it 
and  prevents  each  kind  from  becoming  para- 
mount ;  the  barren  kind  is  not  formidable,  and 
the  fertile  is  not  too  pretty.  And  both  the 
variety  and  the  underlying  simplicity  make  it  a 
country  exactly  fit  for  supplying  Hardy's  genius 
with  the  inspiration  it  required  ;  unless  I  should 
say,  Hardy's  genius  is  exactly  suited  to  the  in- 
spiration supplied  by  this  countryside. 

52 


CHARACTERISTICS 

Beyond  noting  this,  however,  criticism  cannot 
have  much  to  do  with  Wessex  itself.  Tours  in 
Wiltshire  and  Dorsetshire  are  wisely  under- 
taken, if  their  purpose  is  a  view  of  those  beauti- 
ful counties ;  they  are  curiously  futile,  if  their 
purpose  is  to  get  somehow  nearer  to  the  art  of 
the  Wessex  Novels.  Wessex  in  the  novels  is 
simply  a  creature  used  for  a  special  artistic  pur- 
pose ;  apart  from  that  purpose  it  has,  artistically, 
no  significance.  The  elaborate  system  of  alter- 
ing the  place-names  should  be  a  sufficient  hint 
of  this.  However  much  the  actual  Wessex 
may  interest  and  delight,  such  feelings  will  not 
help  us  to  enjoy  Hardy,  any  more  than  a  read- 
ing of  Roman  history  or  Saxo  Grammaticus 
will  add  to  the  significance  of  Julius  Caesar  or 
Hamlet.  Still,  explorations  in  Wessex  guided 
by  one  of  the  several  handbooks  of  Hardy  geo- 
graphy are  harmless  entertainment ;  and  if  the 
handbook  get  lost,  and  the  relation  of  Dorset 
to  the  novels'  South  Wessex  be  forgotten,  they 
will  become  as  philosophic  as  any  other  tours 
through  admirable  landscape.  Otherwise  the 
tourist  will  certainly  be  teased  by  conscious  or 
unconscious  perception  that  art  is  one  thing  and 
reality  another ;  that,  for  instance,  the  charm  of 
Casterbridge  is  certainly  not  to  be  found  in  the 
pleasant  old  town  of  Dorchester. 

Hardy's  limitations  may  possibly,  in  regard  to 
53 


THOMAS    HARDY 

his  human  material — must  certainly,  in  regard  to 
his  use  of  locality — be  considered  as  varying  ex- 
pressions of  his  remarkable  instinct  for  aesthetic 
form.  But  there  is  one  other  limitation  to  be 
discussed ;  not  dissimilar  in  nature  to  these 
others,  but  one  that  could  never  be  taken  or 
mistaken  for  an  advantage.  This  is  in  regard 
to  the  style  of  his  writing.  I  suppose  no  sane 
admirer  of  Hardy's  work  has  ever  gone  the 
length  of  calling  him  a  master  of  language. 
Language  with  him  on  the  whole  is  an  instru- 
ment^— an  efficient  one,  to  be  sure ;  but  it  is 
seldom  an  organism.  The  words,  in  the  general 
texture  of  his  work,  are  words  used  much  as  a 
scientist,  scarcely  as  a  poet,  would  use  them. 
With  the  scientist,  the  value  of  words  depends 
on  their  place  in  a  sentence,  their  individual 
obedience  to  a  general  purport ;  with  the  poet, 
this  logical  value  of  words  is  compounded  with 
an  additional  value,  just  as  considerable,  which 
is  absolutely  their  own,  quite  apart  from  any 
sentence  wherein  they  may  be  of  use.  And 
this  additional  value  does  not  embarrass  the 
other,  but  on  the  contrary  gives  it  surprising 
potency ;  for  the  thought  of  a  poet  is  not 
something  that  can  be  stated  precisely  in  words, 
and  there  an  end.  It  shades  off  all  round 
from  the  precise  into  the  indefinite  and  incom- 
municable,  into  what  can   only  be   suggested. 

54 


CHARACTERISTICS 

He  tries,  therefore,  to  give  his  thought  not  only 
a  logical  statement  in  words,  but  also  to  infect 
his  reader's  mind  with  the  vague  aura  surround- 
ing his  thought,  by  so  organizing  his  logical 
words  that  their  essential,  hyper-logical  value  is 
noticeably  and  appropriately  used.  Such  or- 
ganizing of  language  will  vehemently  empower 
the  logic  beyond  anything  that  can  be  effected 
by  the  mere  instrumental  use  of  language  ;  but, 
most  conspicuously,  it  gives  words  that  challeng- 
ing and  exciting  quality  which  they  only  have 
when  they  are  used  as  things  existing  for  them- 
selves as  well  as  for  logic.  I  shall  adopt  here, 
and  in  later  chapters,  the  terminology  invented 
by  Mr.  Arthur  Ransome.  He  divides  the 
energy  of  words  into  "  kinetic  "  and  "  potential," 
on  an  obvious  analogy  ;  "  kinetic  "  being  what  I 
have  roughly  called  their  logical  force,  "  poten- 
tial "  their  exciting  force.  This  admirable  device, 
perhaps  the  most  useful  of  recent  additions  to 
the  apparatus  of  criticism,  can  scarcely  be  dis- 
pensed with  in  any  nice  examination  of  diction  ; 
it  is  especially  useful  in  the  case  of  a  writer  like 
Hardy. 

All  language  (except  perhaps  in  cookery  books 
and  the  statement  of  geometrical  problems) 
must  be  both  kinetic  and  potential.  The  ordin- 
ary user  of  language,  the  man  who  uses  words 
as  an  engine  for  the  statement  of  precise  thought, 

55 


THOMAS   HARDY 

is  consciously  concerned  only  with  their  kinetic 
energy  ;  but  words  inevitably  carry  with  them, 
and  he  must  unconsciously  employ,  their  poten- 
tial energy.  The  latter,  however,  in  such  use 
of  words,  is  subdued  and  merged  in  the  kinetic ; 
it  does  not  challenge  the  reader's  admiration  and 
delight ;  he  is  left  to  admire  only  the  words' 
logical  obedience.  But  the  man  who  has  really 
mastered  language  is  one  to  whom  the  know- 
ledge of  how  to  write  logically  is  but  half  the 
business ;  he  consciously  employs  potential  as 
well  as  kinetic ;  and  the  reader's  pleasure  in 
logical  form  is  continually  reinforced  by  some 
sudden  liberation  of  a  word's  essential  and 
characteristic  energy.  This  kind  of  writing 
is  almost  wholly  lacking  in  the  great  bulk  of 
Hardy's  prose.  It  is  language  used  consciously 
only  for  its  kinetic  power ;  the  potential  is  there, 
as  it  must  be  in  all  intelligent  diction ;  but  it  is 
implicit,  it  is  manifest  only  feebly  and  acciden- 
tally, for  conscious  intention  is  needed  to  make 
the  exciting  force  of  words  tell.  Yet  there  are 
occasional  passages  wherein  the  potential  of 
words  does  find  some  exciting  liberation  in 
Hardy's  prose.  They  are  usually  passages  that 
evidently  come  out  of  long  intense  brooding  on 
the  appearance  of  the  earth.  Nature  has  assumed 
the  quality  of  concealed  personality ;  and  the 
strong  efforts  to  seize  this  into  words  seem  to 

56 


CHARACTERISTICS 

cause  an  unwonted  illumination  of  the  riches 
held  in  words  themselves.  The  famous  de- 
scription of  Egdon  Heath,  to  which  this  chapter 
has  already  several  times  referred,  is  a  very 
remarkable  instance  of  this  also. 

But  when  we  consider  Hardy's  use  of  dialect, 
we  must  at  once  perceive  that,  in  this  question 
of  style,  we  are  again  dealing  not  so  much  with 
disability  as  with  limitation.  It  is  with  his 
language  as  with  his  characters.  When  he  is 
concerned  with  rusticity,  of  persons  or  of 
language,  the  surface  of  his  work,  however 
charming  in  itself,  is  always  to  be  felt  as  the 
manifestation  of  inwardness ;  but  in  the  case  of 
his  polite  people  and  his  polite  language,  he  is  so 
much  concerned  with  keeping  the  surface  polite 
that  he  gives  us  little  else  than  surface.  And 
unfortunately,  novels  must  be  written  in  polite 
language.  But  when  we  pass  from  the  general 
texture  of  the  narrative  into  a  rustic  conversa- 
tion, the  difference  is  amazing;  just  as  amazing 
as  the  sudden  change  from  the  respectable  pros- 
ing of  Scott's  polite  style  to  the  superb,  glowing 
language  of  "  Wandering  Willie's  Tale "  in 
"Redgauntlet."  It  is  a  jump  into  another  world ; 
from  a  world  in  which  words  are  merely  honestly 
and  faithfully  logical,  to  one  in  which  they  are 
"  Virtues  and  Powers,"  where  they  move  charged 
with  incalculable  potentials,  radiating  that  strange 

57 


THOMAS   HARDY 

suggestiveness  which  is  the  poetic  value  of  words. 
Let  me  give  a  specimen  of  the  vivid,  nervous, 
darting  speech  Hardy  gives  to  his  rustics  ;  it  is 
a  merely  typical  case  of  their  exquisite  vain- 
glorying  : 

"  I  once  hinted  my  mind  to  her  on  a  few  things,  as 
nearly  as  a  battered  frame  dared  to  do  so  to  such  a 
forward  piece.  You  all  know,  neighbours,  what  a  man  I 
be,  and  how  I  come  down  with  my  powerful  words  when 
my  pride  is  boiling  wi'  scam  ?  " 

"We  do,  we  do,  Henery." 

"  So  I  said, '  Mistress  Everdene,  there's  places  empty,  and 
there's  gifted  men  willing;  but  the  spite1 — no,  not  the 
spite — I  didn't  say  spite — '  but  the  villainy  of  the  contrari- 
kind,1 1  said  (meaning  womankind), '  keeps  'em  out.'  That 
wasn't  too  strong  for  her,  say  ?  " 

"  Passably  well  put." 

"  Yes  ;  and  I  would  have  said  it,  had  death  and  salvation 
overtook  me  for  it.  Such  is  my  spirit  when  I  have  a 
mind." 

"  A  true  man,  and  proud  as  a  lucifer." 

"  A  strange  old  piece,  goodmen — whirled  about  from 
here  to  yonder,  as  if  I  were  nothing!  A  little 
warped,  too.  But  I  have  my  depths  ;  ha,  and  even  my 
great  depths  !  I  might  gird  at  a  certain  shepherd,  brain 
to  brain.     But  no— —  Oh  no!" 

"  A  strange  old  piece,  ye  say  !  "  interposed  the  maltster, 
in  a  querulous  voice.  "  At  the  same  time  ye  be  no  old 
man  worth  naming — no  old  man  at  all.  Yer  teeth  baint 
half  gone  yet ;  and  what's  a  old  man's  standing  if  so  be 
his  teeth  baint  gone  ?     Weren't  I  stale  in  wedlock  afore 

58 


CHARACTERISTICS 

ye  were  out  of  arms  ?     'Tis  a  poor  thing  to  be  sixty,  when 
there's  people  far  past  fourscore — a  boast  weak  as  water." 


"  Weak  as  water  !  Yes,"  said  Jan  Coggan.  "  Malter, 
we  feel  ye  to  be  a  wonderful  veteran  man,  and  nobody  can 
gainsay  it." 

"  Nobody,"  said  Joseph  Poorgrass.  "  Ye  be  a  very  rare 
old  spectacle,  malter,  and  we  all  respect  ye  for  that  gift." 

"Ay,  and  as  a  young  man,  when  my  senses  were  in 
prosperity,  I  was  likewise  liked  by  a  good-few  who  knowed 
me,11  said  the  maltster. 

This  dialect  is  by  no  means  an  affair  of  laboured 
phonetic  spelling  ;  "  scarn  "  and  "  baint "  are  but 
flavouring.  It  is  fine  English  made  out  of  dialect, 
rather  than  dialect  itself;  for  successful  art  can 
no  more  be  satisfied  with  reality  of  language  than 
with  reality  of  event :  both  must  be  improved 
and  formed.  Obviously,  however,  the  material 
was  excellent ;  a  language  full  of  potential 
vigour  of  a  kind  that  is  evidently  more  suited  to 
Hardy's  personal  expression  than  the  shyer  kind 
with  which  polite  or  "  literary "  English  is 
charged.  So  suited  to  him  is  it,  that  he  seems 
unable  to  avoid  animating  it  with  the  imaginative 
verve  which  only  the  potential  of  language  can 
convey.  The  potential  of  polite  language  makes 
but  little  appeal  to  him ;  and  the  enthusiasm  of 
thought,  when  this  is  the  medium,  goes  therefore 
unexpressed.     The  difference  between  his  narra- 

59 


THOMAS   HARDY 

tive  and  his  dialect  style  is  the  difference  between 
substance  and  vitality,  between  mechanism  and 
organism.1 

In  the  following  chapters  Hardy's  books  will 
not  be  dealt  with  chronologically,  but  in  a  classifi- 
cation based  on  their  artistic  significance,  as  I  see 
it.  There  is  no  particular  virtue  in  chronological 
classification ;  it  must  be  chiefly  founded  on 
order  of  publication,  and  this  may  be  but  loosely 
related  to  order  of  composition,  and  hardly  at 
all  related  to  order  of  conception.  Who  is  to 
say  how  long  an  artist  has  been  carrying  the  idea 
and  the  form  of  a  work  in  his  mind  ?  Who  can 
tell  what  unconscious  characteristics  of  an  earlier 
period  will  be  precipitated  when  the  work  comes 
to  be  written  down  ?  The  futility  of  chrono- 
logical treatment  is  best  seen  in  those  artists 
whose  chronology  has  been  most  carefully 
studied.  Beethoven,  for  instance  ;  there  is  little 
precision  of  real  order  when  his  works  are  put  in 
time-order ;  there  is  continual  transgression  of 
chronology  in  style  and  idea,  harking  back  and 
anticipation.  Equally  futile  is  it  to  expect 
that  by  arranging  the  works  of  a  man  whose 
chronology  is  speculative  (Shakespeare,  for  in- 

1  The  dialect  is  also  more  correct.  For  instance,  it  says  "  malter  " 
and  not  "maltster,"  knowing  very  well  that  "maltster"  properly  means 
"  she-malter. "  Hardy,  of  course,  cannot  be  charged  with  this  inaccuracy. 
It  is  one  of  the  interesting,  but  not  perhaps  very  important,  mistakes 
that  literary  speech  frequently  makes. 

60 


CHARACTERISTICS 

stance),  in  some  series  marked  by  apparent 
regular  development,  we  have  thereby  arranged 
the  works  in  order  of  composition.  The  mind 
and  work  of  an  artist  do  not  develop  with  this 
easy  regularity ;  it  is  the  delusion  of  an  age 
which  instinctively  regards  progress  as  a  sort  of 
railway  train.  Consider,  in  the  case  of  Hardy, 
the  chronological  order  of  his  first  six  books : 
Desperate  Remedies,  Under  the  Gree?iwood  Tree, 
A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes,  Far  from  the  Madding 
Crowd,  The  Hand  of  Ethelbei^ta,  The  Return  of 
the  Native.  Not  a  very  regular  development 
there !  Much  better,  surely,  to  arrange  the 
books  according  to  their  own  interrelationships, 
not  neglecting  chronology,  but  refusing  its 
tyranny. 

Nevertheless,  it  will  be  convenient  to  give  in 
the  following  list  the  dates  of  Hardy's  chief 
publications  in  England : 

[1840.    Thomas   Hardy  born  at  Upper  Bockhampton, 
near  Dorchester.] 

1871.  Desperate  Remedies. 

1872.  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree. 

1873.  A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes. 

1874.  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd. 

1876.  The  Hand  of  Ethelberta  (serially  in  1875). 

1878.  The  Return  of  the  Native. 

1880.  The  Trumpet-Major. 

1881.  A  Laodicean. 

1882.  Two  on  a  Tower. 

61 


THOMAS    HARDY 

1883.     Romantic  Adventures  of  a  Milkmaid  {Graphic 
Summer  Number). 

1886.  The  Mayor  of  Caster  bridge. 

1887.  The  Woodlanders. 

1888.  Wessex  Tales. 

1891.     A  Group  of   Noble   Dames    (serially,   Graphic 

Christmas  Number,  1890). 
1891.     Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles. 
1894.     Life's  Little  Ironies. 

1896.  Jude  the  Obscure  (serially,  in  mangled  form,  in 

1894-5,  under  titles  "The  Simpletons"  and 
"  Hearts  Insurgent ""). 

1897.  The  Well-Beloved  (serially,  as  "The  Pursuit  of 

the  Well -Beloved,"  in  1892). 

1898.  Wessex  Poems. 

1901.     Poems  of  Past  and  Present. 

1903.  v 

1906.      The  Dynasts,  Parts  I,  II,  and  III. 

1908. ) 

1909.     Time's  Laughing-stocks. 


62 


Ill 

MINOR    NOVELS 

DESPERATE    REMEDIES  I    A    PAIR    OF    BLUE    EYES  I 

THE      HAND      OF      ETHELBERTA  I      A     LAODICEAN  I 

THE    WELL-BELOVED 

There  is  not  much  experiment  perceptible  in 
the  progress  of  Hardy's  fiction  ;  though  towards 
the  end  we  shall  find  a  definite  change  in  the 
manner  of  his  construction.  But  Under  the 
Greentvood  Tree  is  already  the  work  of  one  who 
has  got  his  material  under  perfect  control ;  and 
this  is  the  second  novel  in  order  of  publication. 
And  with  the  fourth  in  that  order,  Far  from 
the  Madding  Crowd,  published  only  three  years 
after  the  appearance  of  his  first  book,  his  genius 
has  reached  full  scope ;  for  it  may  easily  be 
maintained  that  his  later  fiction  has  done  no 
more  than  equal  this  exquisite  early  thing.  But 
there  are  a  number  of  novels  which,  though  not 
tentative,  are  of  slight  importance  in  a  general 
consideration  of  Hardy's  work.  Several  of 
these  are,  no  doubt,  relaxations  from  severer 
efforts ;  during  the  first  dozen  years  of  produc- 

63 


THOMAS    HARDY 

tion  there  is  a  quite  regular  alternation  from 
large  to  slight  design.  This  is  very  natural,  for 
it  means  only  that  genius  has  been  resting 
between  its  achievements.  The  talent  is  pretty 
much  the  same  in  all  the  novels ;  but  in  the 
slighter  tales  it  works  for  its  own  sake.  The 
genius,  which  so  strongly  controls  the  talent  of 
the  great  novels,  is  here  fitfully  employed,  and 
is  certainly  not  in  command.  Merely  talented 
work  is  often  the  most  profitable  holiday  an 
artist  of  genius  can  take  ;  his  genius,  one  might 
say,  finds  the  best  encouragement  for  a  fresh 
attempt  in  watching  how  its  lieutenant  works 
alone. 

The  power  of  consistently  imagining  human 
beings,  with  all  their  individual  wills  and  desires, 
as  special  manifestations  of  a  universal  tendency, 
which  has  possession  of  everything  in  them 
except  the  assertions  of  self-consciousness ;  and 
the  power  of  shaping  forth  this  imagination  in  a 
rigorous  human  action :  these  two  combined 
powers  of  conception  and  creation  form  the  pro- 
found characteristic  of  Hardy's  genius.  These 
are  the  things,  then,  his  novels  of  talent  miss. 
They  show  an  admirable  skill  for  surface.  They 
charm  and  they  excite ;  but,  except  for  a  casual 
incident  or  two,  when  they  are  read  they  are 
done  with.  Talent  in  each  has  done  its  varying 
best ;  but  that  is  not  an  effect  of  the  story  as  a 

64 


MINOR   NOVELS 

whole,  apart  from  its  separable  incidents,  which 
is  remembered  for  a  great  imaginative  experi- 
ence. On  the  whole,  these  novels  of  talent  are 
not  closely  concerned  with  country  folk ;  rus- 
ticity in  them  is  used  as  a  contrast  to  the  main 
business.  Their  author,  that  is  to  say,  only 
casually  employs  in  them  that  kind  of  human 
material  which  his  genius  most  easily  works  in, 
which  enables  him  to  symbolize  in  terms  of  con- 
crete action  his  fundamental  conception  of  the 
human  state.  And  it  is  in  these  brief  contrast- 
ing passages  that  we  most  easily  find  the  Hardy 
of  the  greater  novels.  Perhaps  it  is  worth 
noticing,  too,  that  when  it  is  talent,  and  not 
genius,  that  has  the  chief  management  of  his 
fiction,  he  is  ready  to  use  the  circumstances  of 
his  own  experience ;  the  profession  of  architec- 
ture is  a  principal  ingredient  in  no  less  than 
three  of  these  slighter  novels :  Desperate 
Remedies,  A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes,  and  A 
Laodicean.  In  spite  of  such  great  instances 
to  the  contrary  as  Goethe  and  Dante,  those 
writers  who,  at  their  best,  are  conspicuous  for 
imaginative  rather  than  imitative  power,  gener- 
ally use  personal  experience  to  supply  the  failure 
of  inspiration. 

Four  of  these  lesser  novels,  published  during 
the  first  ten  years  of  Hardy's  output,  are  chiefly 
considerable  as  studies,  no  doubt  of  great  im- 
e  65 


THOMAS   HARDY 

portance  to  the  facility  of  subsequent  work, 
in  the  exercise  of  two  kinds  of  skill:  the  plot- 
ting out  of  a  story,  and  the  drawing  of  feminine 
character.  Desperate  Remedies  is  an  affair  of 
long,  ingenious  complications ;  too  exclusively, 
as  its  preface  now  admits,  of  "  mystery,  en- 
tanglement, surprise,  and  moral  obliquity."  It 
is  an  exciting  story,  even  though  the  excite- 
ments are  somewhat  deliberately  devised ;  and 
the  subordinate  rustic  comedy  that  centres  in 
the  "Three  Tranters  Inn"  is  of  unmistakable 
qualit}',  though  perhaps  it  would  hardly  prepare 
us  for  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree,  which  ap- 
peared a  year  later.  Psychologically,  the  tale 
is  of  two  women,  the  vehement  Miss  Aldclyffe 
and  the  gentle  Cytherea ;  and  their  outlines, 
sometimes  stiff  rather  than  definite,  sometimes 
shadowy  rather  than  subtle,  nevertheless  suggest 
several  characteristic  heroines  of  the  later  novels, 
especially  in  their  mingled  impulse  and  reserve. 
But  Desperate  Remedies  is  chiefly  a  study  in 
plot.  A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes  has  a  less  surpris- 
ing plot,  but  a  far  more  absorbing  one,  strictly 
devised  to  lead  up  to  a  climax,  not  of  mys- 
tery discovered,  but  of  quite  admirable  tragic 
irony.  The  two  friendly  disappointed  rivals, 
each  hastening  down  to  forestall  the  other  in 
an  interview  with  the  impressionable  beloved, 
find  that  the  train  which  is  carrying  them  on 

GG 


MINOR   NOVELS 

their  hopeful  errand  is  also  carrying  the  lady 
herself,  but  carrying  her  to  her  grave.  The 
sudden  turn  from  pathos  to  comedy,  and  from 
comedy  to  tragedy,  betrays  the  master  of  plot — 
rather,  it  is  formal  mastery  that  has  now  arrived  ; 
plot  is  too  narrow  a  word  for  the  power  this 
book  shows  of  putting  a  complexity  of  affairs 
into  the  control  of  a  single  cogency.  The  talent 
is  now  ready  for  genius  to  use  in  a  much  larger 
and  deeper  scope  of  imagination  ;  the  following 
year,  with  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd,  sees 
it  so  used.  Elfride,  the  indiscreet,  impulsive 
heroine  of  A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes,  is  a  charming 
person,  drawn  with  real  subtlety,  with  lines  of 
exact  yet  delicate  stroke.  She  is  not,  indeed, 
to  be  compared  with  her  immediate  successor, 
Bathsheba  Everdene  ;  but  the  masterful  drawing 
of  Bathsheba  seems  to  owe  something  to  the 
practice  Elfride  provided  in  the  way  of  figuring 
a  creature  of  incalculable  impulse  whose  person- 
ality is  yet  not  fluid  but  definitely  formed.  This 
novel,  too,  contains  some  admirable  rustics ; 
notably  William  Worm,  plagued  with  the 
noises  in  his  head  ("  Fizz,  fizz,  fizz  ;  'tis  frying  o' 
fish  from  morning  to  night ")  and  complaining 
against  Providence  ("  Providence  is  a  merciful 
man,  and  I  have  hoped  He'd  have  found  it  out 
by  this  time,  living  so  many  years  in  a  parson's 
family,    too,    as   I   have,  but   'a   don't  seem   to 

67 


THOMAS   HARDY 

relieve  me").  The  adventure  on  the  cliff-top 
is  a  very  memorable  incident ;  the  dread  of 
height  has  seldom  gone  into  language  with  such 
small  loss  of  its  grisly  force ;  the  passage  is  a 
fine  instance  of  the  patient  intensity  of  Hardy's 
writing  on  crucial  occasions — deliberately,  with 
almost  perceptible  labour,  building  up  words 
into  the  exact  shape  of  some  formidable  emotion. 
And  yet,  when  all  is  said,  A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes 
is  a  slight  book ;  slight,  that  is,  compared  with 
the  novel  which  followed  it.  It  is  a  well-ordered 
system  of  charming,  pathetic,  but  unimportant 
occurrences ;  unimportant,  because,  when  their 
system  has  rounded  to  its  close,  they  have  not 
managed  to  convey  any  general  significance,  any 
suggestion  of  life  as  a  whole  underlying  indi- 
vidual appearance. 

The  Hand  of  Ethelberta  does  not  call  for 
much  comment.  Ethelberta  herself  is  a  bust- 
ling, managing,  rapid-minded,  unscrupulous, 
rather  lovable  wench ;  but  her  invasion  of  high 
society  is  a  tiresome  business  long  before  it  is 
finished.  The  story  is  so  drawn  out  that  it  is 
almost  rambling ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  be 
interested  in  its  gentry.  The  opening  is  good, 
so  good  that  it  carries  one  a  considerable  way 
into  the  tale  before  lassitude  becomes  noticeable  ; 
but  the  reader  will  scarcely  find  in  the  succeed- 
ing forty-six  chapters  anything  as  taking  as  the 

68 


MINOR   NOVELS 

first,  with  its  conversation  of  milkman  and 
hostler,  and  Ethelberta's  chase  of  the  duck- 
hawk.  Hardy  has  an  excellent  knack  of  setting 
a  narrative  going.  It  is  very  noticeable  again  in 
A  Laodicean;  the  baptism  scene  is  not  easily 
resisted.  Neither  is  the  rest  of  the  story ;  the 
plot  is  managed  with  delightful  skill.  But  the 
novel  is  obviously  meant  to  satisfy  certain  well- 
known  preferences  of  public  taste  ;  and,  in  spite 
of  its  cunning  plot  and  the  amiable  (but  not 
very  distinguished)  character  of  Paula,  there 
is  perhaps  less  of  the  Hardy  that  matters  in 
A  Laodicean  than  in  any  other  of  his  books. 
The  Romantic  Adventures  of  a  Milkmaid,  though 
it  has  not,  apparently,  been  thought  worthy  of 
republication,1  is  much  more  genuinely  character- 
istic. The  romantic  apparatus  is,  to  be  sure, 
somewhat  preposterous ;  but  it  is  quite  plea- 
santly preposterous,  and  turns  to  a  pretty  irony. 
The  fascinated  milkmaid,  with  her  childish  heart 
and  her  patient  endurance  of  disappointment, 
is  fantastic,  but  finely  imagined  ;  and  her  lover 
the  limeburner,  who  "  suffered  horseflesh "  on 
her  account,  is  not  unlike  the  reddleman  of  The 
Return  of  the  Native,  for  the  absorption  of  his 
trade    into    his    personality.       The    descriptive 

1  This  novelette  appeared  in  the  Graphic  Summer  Number  of 
1888  ;  there  has  been  an  American  reprint — whether  authorized  or 
not  I  do  not  know. 

69 


THOMAS   HARDY 

passages  are  sketchily  done ;  but  they  are 
curiously  effective ;  notably  one  at  the  begin- 
ning, only  a  few  lines  long,  of  the  milkmaid 
walking  through  the  soaking  fog  of  early  morn- 
ing, and  avoiding,  for  her  bonnet's  sake,  the 
shower-baths  of  the  trees :  the  colour  and  smell 
and  quiet  of  early  morning  in  the  valley  are 
fixed  in  those  few  lines.  The  landscape  of  the 
tale  seems  to  be  a  study  for  the  elaborately 
finished  landscape  of  the  dairy-farming  part  in 
Tess  of  the  D'Urbcrvilles. 

The  novels  this  chapter  has  been  so  far  con- 
sidering have  been  removed,  for  convenience  of 
discussion,  from  the  main  series  of  Hardy's 
work,  because  they  are  slight  in  purpose  rather 
than  in  material ;  the  greater  novels  do  not  use 
an  altogether  different  substance,  but  contract 
it  into  a  defined  range  of  society,  and  transfigure 
it  by  a  profound  purpose.  From  these  greater 
and  these  lesser  novels  alike,  The  Well-Beloved 
stands  clearly  apart ;  the  slightness  here  is  in  the 
material.  It  is  the  only  novel  of  Hardy's  in 
which  the  symbolic  purpose,  instead  of  appear- 
ing as  the  result  of  a  certain  ordering  of  the 
material,  appears,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  drawing 
the  material  somewhat  unwillingly  after  it.  Our 
feeling,  when  we  read  this  novel,  is  not,  Here  is 
a  set  of  circumstances  of  which  the  resultant 
effect  is  so-and-so  ;  but,  Here  is  an  effect  which 

70 


MINOR   NOVELS 

may,  for  the  convenience  of  narrative,  be  sup- 
posed as  occurring  in  such-and-such  a  set  of 
circumstances.  In  a  word,  The  Well-Beloved  is 
frankly  fantastic  :  it  must  be  read  just  for  the 
sake  of  its  idea,  not  for  the  verisimilitude  of  its 
substance.  It  has  already  been  remarked,  that 
Hardy's  heroines  commonly  prove  decidedly 
disastrous  to  their  lovers ;  this  is  as  obvious  in 
A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes  as  in  most  of  the  greater 
novels.  In  the  minds  of  those  writers  who 
have  held  to  the  ruinous  power  of  love  and 
women,  the  usual  corollary — it  is  a  sort  of 
revenge — is  the  notion  of  the  eternal  inadequacy 
of  women  to  the  love  they  inspire ;  not  only 
misogynists  believe  it,  but  idealists  like  William 
Morris,  whose  type  of  feminine  perfection  says : 

"  I  am  true,  but  my  face  is  a  snare ; 
Soft  and  deep  are  my  eyes, 
And  they  seem  for  men's  beguiling 
Fulfilled  with  the  dreams  of  the  wise. 
Kind  are  my  lips,  and  they  look 
As  though  my  soul  had  learned 
Deep  things  I  have  never  heard  of." 

This  notion  is  very  well  for  philosophers  and 
lyrical  poets,  but  it  does  not  do  for  dramatists 
(and  novelists  are  a  kind  of  dramatists),  for  their 
business  is  an  unequivocal  dealing  with  objective 
life,  invigorated  but  unperturbed  by  subjective, 
notional  life.    Hardy,  therefore,  generally  avoids 

71 


THOMAS   HARDY 

drawing  woman  as  a  "  snare  "  in  Morris'  sense ; 
The  Well-Beloved  stands  by  itself  in  that  it  was 
written  entirely  to  elaborate  this  notion.  Its 
singularity  in  the  series  of  his  works  makes  it 
remarkable ;  but  it  is  not  a  novel  of  any  very 
notable  success. 

The  amorous  sentiment  which  possesses  the 
central  character  is,  however,  a  very  interesting 
practical  variety  of  the  Platonic  theory  of  love. 
In  modern  literature,  the  theory  of  ideal  love — 
of  love,  namely,  which  is  something  more  than 
a  refinement  of  sexual  desire — works  out  into 
two  kinds  of  practice,  directly  opposed.  In 
both,  man  is  dominated  by  the  desire  for  a 
transcendental  perfection.  Dante  is  the  great 
instance  of  the  one  kind.  With  him  the  desire 
can  only  be  aroused  from  its  sleep  in  man's  heart 
by  vision  of  one  who  is  not  only  a  credible 
image  of  perfection,  but  who,  for  the  man 
concerned,  actually  is  the  eternal  perfection 
temporally  embodied.  Once  roused,  therefore, 
the  desire  can  never  change  its  object  without 
sinning  against  love ;  but  also,  the  desire  can 
never  be  satisfied  unless  in  the  beatific  vision ; 
since,  though  roused  among  temporal  affairs, 
it  is  a  desire  for  one  eternal  thing.  But  in  the 
other  and  much  commoner  variety  of  Platonic 
love — for  it  takes  a  Dante  to  live  the  experience 
of  "  La  Vita   Nuova "  and  the   imagination  of 

72 


MINOR   NOVELS 

"  Paradiso " — the  desire  always  falls  short  of 
satisfaction  for  a  very  different  reason.  It  is  for 
ever  being  roused,  not  by  the  image  but  by  the 
mere  hope  of  perfection ;  instead  of  being 
excited  once  and  for  all  into  adoration  of  one 
single  person,  it  is  always  restlessly  venturing 
forth  and  alighting  like  a  radiation  on  her  who 
chances  to  be  in  its  way.  The  women  whom 
the  desire  illuminates  are  not  even  its  passing 
embodiments ;  they  are  simply  the  objects 
which,  by  being  illumined,  make  the  illumina- 
tion visible,  just  as  sunlight  is  invisible  until  it 
meets  with  opacity.  So  it  is  only  the  gleaming 
of  his  own  desire  that  the  lover  worships ;  each 
amour  ends  in  the  desire  being  once  more  dis- 
appointed of  perfection,  as  soon  as  the  lover  is 
able  to  distinguish  the  woman  underneath  the 
dazzling  transfiguration  he  himself  has  caused  ; 
the  ideal  love  becomes  a  ceaseless  irony.  But 
in  the  best  known  instances  of  it  the  process 
has  not  stopped  here.  In  Shelley,  it  turns  to  a 
passionate  belief  in  a  real  beauty  which,  though 
itself  elusive,  magnetizes  the  whole  matter  of 
the  world  ;  in  Cavalcanti  and  Leopardi  it  turns, 
on  the  contrary,  to  an  impotent  wrath  with  love, 
and  no  doubt  this  also  underlies  the  sentiment 
of  the  famous  "  odi  et  amo  "  of  Catullus,  most 
modern  of  antique  poets.  In  Hardy's  The 
Well-Beloved,   the    result    of  ironical    Platonic 

73 


THOMAS   HARDY 

love  falls  whimsically  between  these  two 
extremes.  The  hero  is  a  sculptor,  and  his 
search  for  beauty  in  art  is  but  another  expres- 
sion of  the  desire  for  the  ideal  which  keeps 
his  changeable  heart  unchangeably  enamoured. 
And  of  what  it  is  that  happens  to  him  when  he 
falls  in  love  he  can  only  say,  with  Catullus, 
"  nescio  sed  .  .  .  excrucior ! "  But  he  does  not 
go  to  any  height  in  either  consequence  of  his 
unwillingly  ironic  Platonism ;  neither  in  his 
worship  of  beauty  nor  in  his  wrath  with  love. 
He  is  a  mediocre  person,  and  his  tragedy  is 
merely  that  he  becomes  ridiculous,  even  to 
himself;  for  the  chief  events  in  his  medley  of 
amours  are  his  successive  affairs,  at  twenty-year- 
intervals,  with  a  woman,  her  daughter,  and  her 
granddaughter.  This  might  have  made  a  plea- 
sant comedy  of  ironic  Platonism ;  but  the  book 
is  fatally  slight  in  its  psychology.  We  know 
nothing  of  the  hero  except  his  unlucky  trick  of 
falling  in  and  falling  out  of  love,  always  expect- 
ing his  ideal  and  never  finding  anything  like  it ; 
and  this  trick  of  his  is  not  made  really  credible 
— it  must  simply  be  accepted  for  the  purposes 
of  narrative.  Nevertheless,  the  novel  is  an 
interesting  attempt ;  and,  if  somewhat  un- 
convincing in  its  naivete,  it  is  at  any  rate  a  clear 
and  straightforward  account  of  a  psychological 
condition  which  has  hitherto  gone  into  literature 

74 


MINOR   NOVELS 

chiefly  in  the  cipher  of  subjective  lyrics.  The 
book  pleasantly  reminds  us,  too,  of  what  the 
poets  usually  forget,  namely,  that  to  be  the 
temporary  object  of  a  man's  idealizing  love  does 
not  make  a  woman  a  nonentity ;  she  herself 
may  at  the  same  time  be  similarly  idealizing  the 
man,  and  be  as  ready  as  he  is  to  own  herself 
disappointed  when  the  reality  of  the  beloved 
"grins  through" — as  painters  say  of  the  grain 
of  wood — the  glamour  of  her  love. 


75 


IV 
ANNEXES 

WESSEX  TALES  I  LIFE'S  LITTLE  IRONIES  :   A  GROUP 

OF  NOBLE  DAMES  :    A  FEW  CRUSTED  CHARACTERS  : 

THE  TRUMPET-MAJOR  I   TWO  ON  A  TOWER  I  UNDER 

THE   GREENWOOD    TREE 

Wordsworth,  in  a  famous  preface,  likened  the 
intention  of  his  proposed  great  trilogy  of 
poems  to  the  body  of  a  Gothic  church,  round 
which,  he  said,  the  best  of  his  shorter  poems 
would  be  found  to  attach  themselves  like  side- 
chapels  and  oratories.  The  simile  is  not  in- 
appropriate to  the  writings  of  Thomas  Hardy, 
if  we  leave  out  the  comparatively  unimportant 
books  discussed  in  the  last  chapter.  For  it  is 
very  easy  to  look  at  Hardy's  work  as  a  whole. 
Its  main  bulk  is  quarried  out  of  one  stratum  of 
human  substance ;  there  is  an  evident  idiosyn- 
crasy of  design  running  through  all  its  various 
structures ;  and,  from  Under  the  Greenwood 
Tree  and  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd  to  The 
Dynasts  and  Time's  Laughing-stocks,  the  whole 
matter  of  his  writing  is  the  vehicle  of  one  con- 

76 


ANNEXES 

tinuous  purposive  emotion,  all  its  imageries 
conform  to  one  chief  obedience,  a  certain  con- 
stant sentiment  or  disposition,  in  the  mind  of 
their  inventor,  "to  Man  and  Nature  and  to 
Human  Life."  In  the  great  building,  which 
fancy  easily  sees  Hardy's  several  books  uniting 
to  shape,  the  pillared  nave  would  be  the  series 
of  the  six  principal  novels ;  unless  the  two  last 
of  them  should  be  seen  as  transepts,  since  each 
of  these  is  large  enough  to  stand  somewhat  by 
itself.  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree  might  be 
the  porch  or  ante-chapel ;  and  certainly  The 
Dynasts  must  be  the  quire,  a  place,  as  some- 
times happens,  of  loftier  proportions,  more 
intricate  carving  and  more  varied  material  than 
the  nave  through  which  it  is  approached.  This 
is  the  main  building ;  but  round  about,  though 
not  separate,  supporting  but  not  intimately  con- 
cerned in  the  chief  composition  of  the  building, 
there  are,  like  side-chapels  and  miscellaneous 
recesses,  the  poems,  the  short  stories,  and  two 
other  novels.  It  is  with  such  annexes  to  the 
main  building  that  this  chapter  will  deal ;  leav- 
ing, however,  the  poems  for  a  later  chapter. 
This  proposed  architectural  image  of  Hardy's 
work  as  a  whole  is  useful  for  the  kind  of  com- 
pleteness and  wholeness  of  general  design  which 
it  suggests — one  main  continuity  of  expression 
surrounded    by    subordinate   yet    not   detached 

77 


THOMAS   HARDY 

varieties ;  but  the  simile,  to  be  sure,  must  not 
be  pressed  too  closely.  The  spirit  of  the  build- 
ing which  fantasy  thus  forms  of  Hardy's  tales 
and  poems  is  far  enough  from  anything  ecclesi- 
astic ;  it  is,  no  question,  a  spirit  of  large  and 
grave  dignity,  but  also  it  is  a  spirit  of  rough, 
sensuous  comedy,  and  of  a  scepticism  that 
refuses  everything  but  the  general  tragic  fatality 
of  existence. 

First,  then,  for  the  short  stories.  They  may 
be  said,  broadly,  to  decorate,  rather  than  to  add 
to  the  general  significance  of  Hardy's  artistic 
structure.  This  is  hardly  what  would  be 
expected,  if  one  came  to  these  short  stories 
after  reading  the  best  of  the  novels.  For  in 
Hardy's  hands,  fiction  has  done,  in  the  scale 
of  the  novel,  what  previously  it  could  only  do 
with  certainty  and  ease  in  the  scale  of  the  short 
story ;  the  power  of  making  a  human  action 
render,  with  astonishing  impressiveness,  and  by 
means  of  a  most  exact  formality,  some  meta- 
physic  of  existence  is  clear  in  Hawthorne's  tales. 
But,  splendid  as  several  of  his  novels  are,  this 
power  is  only  diluted  when  Hawthorne  works 
to  the  scale  of  the  novel.  With  Hardy  it  is 
the  other  way  round ;  to  exercise  this  power, 
his  fiction  requires  expatiation  rather  than  con- 
centration. But,  though  his  short  stories  are 
a  decoration  for  his  main  literary  structure,  they 

78 


ANNEXES 

are  entirely  appropriate  decoration.  They  give 
us,  in  varying  forms  and  manners,  his  character- 
istic vision  of  life ;  what  we  miss  in  them  is  the 
subtle  declaration  of  what  that  vision  profoundly 
means  to  his  inmost  emotion.  If  they  do  not 
add  much  power  to  the  effect  of  his  writings 
as  a  whole,  they  nevertheless  perfectly  fit  in 
with  it.  Consider,  as  types  of  the  rest,  the 
two  stories  which  are  probably  the  best  known 
of  these  shorter  pieces :  The  Three  Strangers 
and  The  Withered  Arm.  Here,  concentrated 
into  terse  and  vivid  drama,  is  precisely  the  same 
vision  of  life  as  that  which  is  wrought  into 
larger  and  more  significant  form  in  the  novels. 
We  are  set  to  watch  a  process  of  life  which 
goes  as  inevitably  and  as  involuntarily  as  a 
process  of  chemistry.  Certain  elements  appear, 
variously  combined,  and  distributed  through  the 
indifferent  mass  of  surrounding  humanity — the 
"  heap  of  flesh,"  as  he  somewhere  calls  it.  But 
however  compounded  and  scattered,  these  ele- 
ments are  irresistibly  moved  to  work  towards 
one  another  by  strong  affinity ;  and  the  human 
molecules  in  which  they  are  ingredients  are 
dragged  along  with  them,  until  the  elemental 
affinity  is  satisfied,  in  a  sudden  flashing  moment 
of  disintegration  and  re-compounding.  The 
new  compound  into  which  these  elements 
arrange    themselves    is,    in    the    short    stories, 

79 


THOMAS    HARDY 

a  tragical  or  ironical  situation ;  with  this  solid 
result  the  experiment  in  the  chemistry  of  life 
stops.  But  in  the  great  novels  a  nicer  investiga- 
tion is  added  ;  there  is  attempt  to  catch  and 
estimate  the  fine  escape  of  insensible  vapour 
which  accompanies  the  process ;  there,  in  a 
word,  the  result  is  not  merely  the  solid  tangible 
one  of  human  situation,  but  is  also  a  signifi- 
cance, intellectual  and  spiritual. 

The  Three  Strangers  is  perhaps  the  best 
instance  of  sheer  situation  in  the  short  stories. 
The  controlled  fear  of  the  fugitive  condemned 
criminal,  the  hangman's  cheerful  pride  in  his 
duty  (the  hangman  is  an  admirable  creature), 
and  the  amazed  distress  of  the  fugitive's  brother 
— these  are  the  elements  that  work  towards 
each  other.  The  rustic  christening  feast,  which 
holds  them  like  a  solution,  suddenly  precipitates 
them  compounded  into  a  tragical  situation ;  the 
compound,  however,  is  not  stable ;  it  breaks  up 
and  goes  once  more  into  solution.  But  the 
experiment  was  exciting.  In  The  Withered 
Arm,  it  is  no  fleeting  compound  of  tragedy 
that  results,  but  one  as  stable  as  it  is  grim.  The 
slow  and  formidable  process  of  this  tale  has  for 
its  most  urgent  activity  a  dreadful  superstition, 
which  irresistibly  drives  forward  the  involuntary 
blasting  hatred  of  the  cast-off  mistress,  the 
misery  of  the  barren  wife  changed  from  beauty 

80 


ANNEXES 

to  strange  deformity,  the  husband's  disgust  with 
her  childlessness  and  mysterious  malady,  and 
his  remorse  for  the  bastard  he  had  abandoned, 
until  at  last  all  these  movements  rush  together 
into  a  blazing  instant  and  settle  in  tragic  equi- 
librium. There  is  a  good  deal  of  variety  in 
Hardy's  short  stories  ;  but  the  two  just  men- 
tioned, thus  chemically  imaged,  may  serve  as 
types  of  the  manner  and  substance  of  the  rest. 
The  others  are  more  often  ironical  than  tragical 
in  result.  The  Distracted  Preacher  is  possibly 
the  finest  of  these  experiments  in  irony.  Most 
of  it  is  an  excellent  comedy  of  the  humours  of 
smuggling ;  and  it  is  especially  notable  for  its 
brilliant  picture  of  the  smuggling  widow, 
Mrs.  Lizzy  Newberry.  The  irony  is  kept  for 
the  last  paragraph.  For  this  adventurous,  high- 
spirited,  contriving,  vigorous  young  woman  falls 
in  love  with  a  preaching  nincompoop,  and  gives 
up  her  racy  life  to  go  with  him  through  the 
duties  of  his  dismal  religion.  She  ought  soon 
to  weary  of  him ;  but  what  happens  is  only  too 
credible  :  the  admirable  wench  becomes  subdued 
to  the  religion  of  her  pithless  husband,  and  gets 
in  the  end  to  writing  tracts  wherein  her  former 
masterful  qualities  are  shown  up  as  horrible 
instances  of  unregenerate  nature.  There  is  no 
need  to  go  through  all  the  other  stories.  Memor- 
able in  them  are  the  two  ambitious  curates  so 
f  81 


THOMAS   HARDY 

plagued  by  their  rapscallion  father  that  they 
virtually  murder  him  ;  the  man  who  endangers 
a  woman's  happiness  not  by  betraying  her,  but 
by  seeking  to  repair  her  supposed  ruin  in  the 
conventional  fashion  ;  the  effect  of  sea-sickness 
in  revealing  unsuspected  blood-relationship ; 
fascination  by  music  in  The  Fiddler  of  the  Reels 
and  by  correspondence  in  On  the  Western  Cir- 
cuit. But  besides  the  two  miscellanies  of 
detached  short  stories,  there  are  also  two  sets  of 
several  tales  organized  together  by  the  supposed 
continuous  occasion  of  their  telling ;  and  some- 
thing must  be  said  of  these. 

The  method  of  the  "  Decameron  "  and  the 
"  Canterbury  Tales  "  has  had  many  imitators;  and 
it  is  a  remarkably  pleasing  kind  of  narrative. 
It  is  a  method  which  not  only  embraces  the  art 
of  story-telling  itself,  but  also,  and  very  agree- 
ably, the  first  origins  of  the  art,  its  primary 
function  in  society.  When  several  companions 
come  together  and  fall  to  amusing  themselves 
with  exchange  of  anecdotes,  it  is  the  occasion 
as  well  as  the  stories  which  they  enjoy.  So, 
when  Boccaccio's  method  of  giving  stories  a 
setting  is  skilfully  employed,  to  the  quality  of 
the  stories  themselves  is  added  a  certain  inti- 
mate pleasure  derived  from  the  supposed 
personality  of  each  narrator,  and  from  his 
imaginary  friendship  with  the  other  narrators ; 

82 


ANNEXES 

and  there  is  besides  the  pleasure  of  feeling  the 
batch  of  stories  coalescing  into  a  single  unity  of 
effect — the  effect,  namely,  of  the  whole  occasion, 
with  its  atmosphere  and  psychology.  For  in  a 
group  of  men  who  have  become  sufficiently 
companionable  to  tell  each  other  stories,  there 
will  be  formed  a  communal  genial  spirit  which 
is  a  good  deal  more  than  the  sum  of  their 
separate  persons.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  occa- 
sion, unique  but  transient,  which  electrifies  its 
members,  so  that  they  enjoy  what  happens 
there  for  more  than  its  own  sake.  This  is  the 
spirit  which  must  first  be  invented  as  the 
region,  so  to  say,  for  this  organized  kind  of 
story-telling  ;  but  its  nature  and  intensity  must 
chiefly  be  exhibited  in  the  various  stories  them- 
selves. 

Evidently,  this  is  work  only  for  a  talent  of 
great  formative  power ;  but  that  is  as  much  as 
to  say  it  is  work  well  suited  to  Hardy's  talent. 
His  two  experiments  in  this  kind  of  work  are  not 
specially  ambitious,  but  they  are  finely  success- 
ful, and  they  follow  the  three  great  instances  of 
organized  story-telling  in  making  the  occasion, 
which  the  tales  create,  itself  the  expression  of 
something  further— though,  certainly,  not  of 
anything  comparable  with  the  profound  zest  for 
life  behind  the  "  Decameron,"  or  the  immense 
sympathy  with  actual  mankind  of  the  "  Canter- 

83 


THOMAS   HARDY 

bury  Tales,"  or  the  aspiration  for  an  ideal  man- 
kind of  "  The  Earthly  Paradise." 

A  Group  of  AToble  Dames  supposes  for  its 
occasion  a  meeting  of  a  Wessex  Field  and 
Antiquarian  Club,  "  of  an  inclusive  and  inter- 
social  character."  Its  members  belong  to  a  placid 
community  which  is  little  disturbed  by  the 
spirit  of  the  time,  one  wherein  "  honest  squires, 
tradesmen,  parsons,  clerks,  and  people  still  praise 
the  Lord  with  one  voice  for  His  best  of  all 
possible  worlds."  The  stories  told  in  this  society 
are  ironic  and  unconscious  criticisms  of  the 
world  thus  envisaged  by  religious  and  mental 
complacency ;  in  the  tales  put  into  the  mouths 
of  the  unsuspecting  narrators,  the  world  of 
respectable  optimism  suffers,  without  knowing 
anything  about  it,  a  considerable  invasion  from 
Hardy's  world  of  tragic  fatalism.  The  usual 
proceedings  of  the  club  for  some  reason  fall 
through ;  and,  that  the  meeting  may  not  be 
wasted,  the  clubmen  conclude  to  tell  each  other 
stories  drawn  from  the  personal  history  of  the 
county :  the  tales,  indeed,  are  really  based  on 
oral  traditions  of  well-known  Wessex  families. 
As  might  be  expected  from  a  male  gathering, 
an  understanding  is  formed  that  the  stories  must 
all  deal  with  the  fortunes  and  characters  of 
women ;  and  it  seems  that  Wessex  county  his- 
tory affords  plenty  of  material,  at  any  rate,  for 

84 


ANNEXES 

such  narrative.  A  Group  of  Noble  Dames  is  a 
wonderful  series  of  feminine  characters,  vividly 
and  subtly  imagined.  The  book  might  be  taken 
as  an  epitome  of  Hardy's  feminine  psychology. 
These  "  noble  dames "  are  as  ready  to  obey 
fantasy  altogether  in  some  things  as  to  endure 
the  sternest  rigours  of  duty  in  others.  There  is 
something  inevitable  in  their  caprice  ;  indeed,  it 
is  not  properly  caprice,  but  action  that  proceeds 
directly  from  the  springs  of  emotion,  without 
passing  through  the  formulation  and  questioning 
of  reason.  It  is,  perhaps,  more  than  anything 
else,  this  power  of  drawing  inevitable  caprice 
that  makes  Hardy  one  of  the  greatest  inventors 
or  describers  of  feminine  character.  One  sees 
very  clearly,  too,  in  this  book,  how  valuable  this 
characteristic  conception  of  female  psychology 
is  to  Hardy's  art ;  in  its  symbolic  purpose,  one 
of  the  most  useful  qualities  it  has.  For  this 
womanly  caprice,  with  all  its  tragical  result, 
becomes  at  last  the  very  type  of  the  impersonal, 
primal  impulse  of  existence,  driving  forward  all 
its  varying  forms  of  embodiment,  profoundly 
working  even  within  their  own  natures  to  force 
them  onward  in  the  great  fatal  movement  of 
the  world,  all  irrespective  of  their  conscious 
desires.  As  for  the  stories  themselves,  they  are 
concise  and  shapely  pieces  of  narrative,  whether 
their  action  be  as  elaborate  as  the  first,  with  its 

85 


THOMAS   HARDY 

complexity  of  characters  and  purposes,  or,  like 
the  tale  of  the  girl  who  fulfilled  a  jest  of  her 
girlhood  and  married  her  three  suitors  one  after 
the  other,  as  simple  in  construction  as  Boccaccio's 
tales.  But  it  is  the  women  themselves  that  we 
most  willingly  remember  ;  such  figures  as  the  girl 
who  infected  herself  with  small-pox  to  escape 
the  match  proposed  for  her,  but  afterwards  used 
the  infection  to  test  the  qualities  of  her  rival 
lovers ;  or  the  pitiful  figure  of  the  wife  infatuated 
with  the  statue  of  her  first  lover,  and  fiendishly 
cured  by  her  husband.  The  stories  are  not 
suited  with  any  special  care  to  their  supposed 
narrators,  though  there  is  no  incongruity  of 
manner.  The  conversational  intervals  between 
the  stories  are  briefly  sketched ;  but  they  are 
enough  to  produce  the  quiet  irony  of  the  whole 
— these  comfortable  representatives  of  a  world 
satisfied  with  unexamined  formulas,  telling  each 
other  tragical  tales  which  reveal,  though  they 
never  suspect  it,  the  reality  of  life's  processes  as 
something  by  no  means  to  be  contained  in  easy- 
going formulae. 

A  Few  Crusted  Characters  is  the  not  very 
felicitous  name  of  the  other  set  of  organized 
tales.  It  is  smaller  in  scope  and  slighter  in 
intention ;  but  it  is  a  little  masterpiece.  A 
man  returns  after  a  long  absence  to  his  native 
village,  and  for  the  final  stage  of  his  journey  he 

86 


ANNEXES 

takes  the  carrier's  van  from  the  market-town. 
He  asks  the  other  passengers  for  information 
about  the  people  he  had  known  in  his  youth ; 
and  his  inquiries  lead  very  naturally  to  a  series 
of  anecdotes  concerning  typical  village  char- 
acters. The  whole  business  fits  in  perfectly 
with  the  occasion ;  the  exile's  return  is  realized 
with  a  sort  of  accumulative  delicacy — the  more 
delicately  for  the  contrasting  mood  of  vigorous 
rustic  joking  which  pervades  the  stories,  and 
underneath  which  the  exile's  return  to  the 
familiar  sensations  of  his  boyhood  quietly  pro- 
gresses. And  it  is  much  more  than  this ;  if 
anyone  wished  to  get,  in  the  course  of  an  hour 
or  so,  a  pretty  clear  understanding  of  the  whole 
spirit  of  rural  England,  of  the  quality  of  its  life 
and  manners,  this  exquisite  little  work  would 
be  the  thing  for  him.  Nothing  could  be  more 
perfectly  English  ;  and  what  that  epithet  essen- 
tially means  is  a  thing  not  easy  to  come  by 
nowadays  in  life  or  in  art.  It  is  not  a  profound 
piece  of  literature.  It  consists  chiefly  of  simple, 
not  to  say  elementary,  humour,  as  rough  and  as 
vigorous  as  a  morris  dance,  though  there  is  a 
touch  of  queer  character  here  and  there,  and 
some  superstition  in  it,  and  one  fairly  elaborate 
tragedy,  containing  a  fine  figure  of  relentless 
vengeance.  But  it  is  all  a  thing  of  admirable, 
unforced,   kindly   art.      The   persons,    like   the 

87 


THOMAS   HARDY 

jokes,  have  the  air  of  belonging  to  the  common 
stock  of  humanity  ;  the  persons  that  will  always 
be  in  the  world,  whatever  other  varieties  of  man- 
kind may  come  and  pass,  and  the  jokes  that  will 
always  be  told,  let  invention  do  what  it  can. 
And  yet  here  both  persons  and  jokes  are  all 
entirely  individual  and  unique  ;  just  what  they 
are  in  these  stories,  they  will  never  be,  and  have 
never  been,  anywhere  else.  The  stories  also 
have  the  advantage  of  being  wholly  written 
in  that  splendid  language,  charged  with  strength 
and  fire,  which  Hardy  has  contrived  out  of  the 
west-country  dialect. 

The  Trumpet- Major  and  Robert  his  Brother 
is  filled  with  a  very  similar  spirit.  What  was 
said  of  a  well-known  play,  might  be  said  of  this 
novel :  "it  seems  written  to  make  the  reader 
happy."  Pathos  is  in  it,  and  even  some 
approach  to  tragedy ;  but  there  is  an  excellent 
sweet  temper  presiding  over  the  manner  of  the 
whole  tale ;  and  to  read  it  is  to  live  for  a  while 
in  an  English  country  village  of  the  old  style. 
The  writing  is  decidedly  more  vivid  and  alive 
than  in  most  of  Hardy's  novels  ;  the  racy  dialect 
of  the  conversations  seems  to  have  infected  the 
language  of  the  whole  narrative.  It  is  full  of 
fine  energy,  rich  with  gaiety  and  whimsical 
humour,  running  off  into  headlong  catalogues 
of  imagery,  as  if  the  words  enjoyed  their  exist- 

88 


ANNEXES 

ence.  The  dialogue  is  full  of  epithetical  vigour 
("  My  scram  blue-vinnied  gallicrow  of  an  uncle," 
for  instance)  ;  and  both  dialogue  and  narrative 
continually  discharge  sharp,  terse  sentences  of 
keen  description,  such  as  this  of  an  old  man's 
eyesight :  "  My  sight  is  so  gone  off  lately  that 
things,  one  and  all,  be  but  a  November  mist  to 
me  " ;  or  this,  of  a  ship  hull-down :  "  She  was 
now  no  more  than  a  dead  fly's  wing  on  a  sheet 
of  spider's  web."  It  is  one  of  those  books  that 
seem  to  make  us  live  with  purged  senses ; 
nothing  escapes  us.  As  we  watch  the  troopers 
watering  their  horses,  the  whole  charm  of  a 
summer  early  morning  comes  into  us ;  and  as 
we  hear  the  sailor  discoursing  on  Trafalgar,  his 
words  are  accompanied  by  a  softly-hummed 
melody — Anne  unconsciously  singing  to  herself 
for  joy  that  her  lover  is  safe  (before  she  learns 
that  his  safety  means  his  treachery  to  her  love). 
Indeed,  the  book  is  so  full  of  gusto  that  it 
frequently  runs  over  into  a  delightful  superfluity 
of  description,  which  certainly  no  one  would 
wish  away ;  there  is  no  resisting  the  zestful 
energy  of  the  great  house-cleaning,  nor  the  pre- 
parations for  the  wedding  feast,  nor  the  relishing 
account  of  Casterbridge  beer.  The  Trumpet- 
Major  can  hardly  be  called  an  historical  novel ; 
but  it  is  an  admirable  realization  of  rural  Eng- 
land in  Napoleonic  times  ;  all  nerves  and  hatred 

89 


THOMAS   HARDY 

of  Frenchmen  underneath  the  placid  habit  of 
her  existence,  ready  to  break  out  into  a  wild 
scurry  of  mingled  effort  and  fear  when  the  bogy 
of  invasion  becomes  suddenly  insupportable,  and 
as  ready  to  fall  back  again  into  quiet  ways. 
The  story  is  a  slight  one ;  scarcely  more  than 
the  distresses  of  a  girl  who,  endeavouring  to 
control  her  love  and  give  it  to  the  more  worthy 
of  her  suitors,  cannot  do  anything  but  love  the 
less  worthy.  It  ends  happily  for  her,  and  for 
the  genial  shiftless  sailor ;  but  the  soldier,  an 
excellent  fellow,  must  go  off  content  with  his 
steadfast  honour  as  its  own  reward.  The  girl  is 
a  charming  study  ;  and  her  gentle  bewilderment 
with  a  life  which,  she  is  sure,  ought  to  be  tran- 
quil and  simple,  but  persists  in  being  disturbing 
and  complex,  is  a  pleasing  counterpart  to  more 
tragical  figures.  The  miller,  and  the  widow, 
and  some  of  the  minor  persons  (like  the  corporal 
who  delights  to  show  off  his  ancient  injuries), 
have,  as  the  persons  of  the  Crusted  Characters 
have,  that  air  of  belonging  to  the  common  stock 
of  humanity,  which  only  a  great  writer  can  give 
with  delight  instead  of  tedium ;  but  Festus 
Derriman,  though  a  tolerable  figure  of  fun,  is 
rather  too  obviously  the  miles  gloriosus  of 
convention. 

In  our  architectural  image  of  Hardy's  work  as 
a  whole,  Two  on  a  Tower  was  paired  with  The 

90 


ANNEXES 

Trumpet- Major,  the  two  books  being,  in  size, 
the  principal  annexes  to  the  main  building.  But 
the  two  can  only  be  put  together  by  reason  of 
the  important,  and,  as  it  were,  mutually  balanc- 
ing position  they  hold  among  the  other  side- 
structures — short  stories  and  poems — grouped 
about  the  loftier  central  portion  of  the  whole 
design,  the  great  novels  and  The  Dynasts.  Than 
Two  on  a  Tower  and  The  Trumpet-Major,  no 
two  novels  by  the  same  author  could  be  more 
different,  in  spirit  and  in  form.  The  eager 
gaiety  which  works  so  deliriously  throughout  the 
latter  has  given  place,  along  with  the  abundant 
happy  descriptiveness,  to  a  graver  spirit  and  a 
stricter  form.  This  is  a  book  whose  beauty  owes 
nothing  to  decoration.  The  lives  of  its  com- 
position are  ordered  with  severe  economy ; 
nothing  distracts  from  the  poignant  tragedy  of 
the  central  theme.  But  the  whole  effect  is  one 
of  extraordinary  beauty.  The  book  is  pervaded 
by  an  exquisite  melancholy,  the  melancholy 
which  "  dwells  with  Beauty — Beauty  that  must 
die."  Its  story  goes  through  some  wonderful 
flights  of  joyous  rapture ;  but  the  joy  is  one 
"  whose  hand  is  ever  at  his  lips,  Bidding  adieu." 
The  deserted  fine  lady  who  pours  out  all  her 
stores  of  passionate  love  on  the  youthful  astrono- 
mer ;  her  momentary  terrible  jealousies  of  his 
science ;  the  relentless  drift  of  their  destiny,  at 

91 


THOMAS   HARDY 

first  by  external  embarrassment  making  their 
private  intimacy  the  sweeter,  but  at  last  dividing 
them  ;  her  desperate  marriage  with  the  bishop  ; 
her  lover's  return,  still  a  youth,  while  she  has 
aged  ;  the  agony  of  unlooked-for  joy  which  kills 
her — this  is  a  theme  which,  for  sheer  beauty 
of  drama  and  character,  Hardy  has  scarcely 
equalled  anywhere  else.  Perhaps  it  is  only 
because  the  book  stands  somewhat  apart  from 
the  main  series  of  the  novels,  and  can  have  but 
little  share  in  their  advantage  of  a  great  common 
intention,  wherein  each  one  seems  to  shoulder 
up  the  other — perhaps  it  is  only  because  of  this 
separation,  that  Tzvo  on  a  Tower  will  hardly  be 
reckoned  one  of  its  author's  most  significant  per- 
formances. But  I  do  not  think  this  is  really  so ; 
I  think  the  book,  for  all  the  beauty  of  its  spirit 
and  the  shapeliness  of  its  design,  does  really  stand, 
not  only  apart  from,  but  below  the  great  novels. 
Life,  certainly,  has  been  exquisitely  formed  to 
art  in  this  story ;  but  yet  the  artistic  formation 
of  life  can  go  deeper  than  it  does  here ;  this 
novel  is  not  a  perfect  satisfaction  of  formative 
desire.  Its  passionate  action  does  not  symbolize 
an  inner  formation  of  some  large  intellectual 
and  ethical  apprehension  of  life's  whole  affairs ; 
not,  at  any  rate,  with  anything  like  the  cogency 
and  easy  certainty  which  give  The  Mayor  of 
Casterbridge  and  Tess  of  the  D'  Urbervillcs  their 

92 


ANNEXES 

title  to  greatness.  There  is  some  admirable 
comedy  in  the  book,  notably  the  scene  in  which 
the  parson  tries  to  persuade  the  quire  to  sing 
from  tonic  sol-fa  ;  but  the  closeness  of  the  form 
does  not  leave  much  place  for  interludes  of 
rustic  dialogue,  and  the  comedy  comes  in  briefly, 
for  the  most  part  in  single  speeches  rather  than 
in  scenes,  the  finest  of  these  speeches  being 
Haymoss  Fry's  history  of  Pa'son  St.  Cleeve's 
career,  his  headstrong  marriage,  his  disgust  with 
his  profession  of  curing  "  twopenny  souls,"  and 
his  death  in  a  nor'- west  thunderstorm,  "  it  being 
said — hee-hee  ! — that  Master  God  was  in  tan- 
trums wi'en  for  leaving  his  service."  The  novel 
has  been  humorously  accused  of  irreverence  to 
the  Established  Church  on  account  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  bishop.  Bishops,  perhaps,  are  not 
quite  so  sacrosanct  nowadays  as  they  used  to 
be ;  we  are  ready  to  believe  that  they  may  be 
more  human  than  the  expensive  suits  of  eccle- 
siastical clothes  for  which  Trollope's  novels  were 
so  admired.  And,  anyway,  this  bishop,  as  Hardy 
pleasantly  remarks  in  his  preface,  "  is  every  inch 
a  gentleman." 

Under  the  Greenwood  Tree  was  published  just 
ten  years  before  Two  on  a  Tower;  and  it  was  the 
second  book  of  Hardy's  to  appear.  But  already 
it  announces  the  construction  of  the  great  series 
of  novels  of  rural  life  to  which  his  fame  as   a 

93 


THOMAS   HARDY 

novelist  is  most  firmly  attached.  That  con- 
struction, as  we  have  seen,  was  to  divagate  from 
its  main  direction  of  purpose  into  various 
subordinate  expressions  :  but,  during  a  period  of 
twenty-four  years  following  the  issue  of  Under 
the  Greenwood  Tree,  the  great  purpose  is  steadily 
built  up,  flanked  by  work  of  lower  stature 
supported  decoratively  round  it,  into  the  lofty 
central  body  of  structure — Far  from  the  Madding 
Crowd,  The  Return  of  the  Native,  The  Mayor  of 
Casterbridge,  The  Woodlanders,  Tess  of  the 
D"  Urbervilles,  and  Jude  the  Obscure  ;  a  continual 
height  of  achievement,  like  the  roof  of  a  nave. 
Seven  years  later,  The  Dynasts  begins  to  carry 
the  central  purpose  still  further,  and  at  a  higher 
pitch  ;  by  no  means  a  summation  of  the  rest  in 
another  form,  but  rather  the  final  justification  of 
the  whole  composition,  the  towering  acme  of  the 
complete  design,  a  roomy,  elaborate  bulk  of 
structure  to  which  all  the  preceding  series  of 
novels  leads  up,  as  nave  leads  to  quire.  The 
interval,  before  the  immense  process  of  this 
addition  was  made  public,  saw  the  appearance, 
as  if  in  preparation  for  it,  of  two  books,  decor- 
ative annexes  to  the  main  body  of  prose, 
composed  in  the  richer  formality  of  verse  ;  and 
the  style  of  the  building  thus  passes  easily  into 
the  intricate  complex  workmanship  of  The 
Dynasts.     The    whole  building,    we   may   now 

94 


ANNEXES 

suppose,  is  complete ;  anything  added  to  it  will 
be  likely  to  decorate  (as  Time's  Laughing  Stocks 
did)  its  great  structure  of  artistic  purpose, 
rather  than  to  carry  the  main  design  forward. 

That  design — an  unconscious  design,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  since  it  is  really  an  exceptionally 
clear  unifying  characteristic  working  itself  out, 
through  several  books,  into  complete  expression 
— that  design,  now  that  we  have  the  whole 
imposing  edifice  finished,  is  seen  to  be  evidently 
beginning  in  Under  the  Greenivood  Tree.  The 
book  is  plainly  in  one  line  with  the  series  of  the 
principal  novels ;  but  it  is,  as  plainly,  a  book 
that  does  not  reach  the  tall  level  of  its  successors. 
It  is,  indeed,  the  porch  through  which  one  enters 
directly  into  the  main  body  of  Hardy's  work,  to 
see  the  whole  length  of  the  building  stretching 
beyond.  There  is  no  large  construction  of 
narrative  in  this  novel ;  we  may  regard  it  as 
a  preliminary  statement  of  the  kind  of  material 
and,  still  more,  the  kind  of  spirit,  which  are  to 
be  more  greatly  and  more  elaborately  used  later. 
But  it  would  be  a  strange  mistake  in  judgment 
to  value  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree  only  as  the 
porch  to  the  rest,  and  not  for  its  own  separate, 
and  exquisite,  sake.  The  rustic  love  of  life, 
finely  coloured  by  the  rustic  stoical  acceptance 
of  life's  evils,  is  realized  in  this  story  with 
more  profundity,  perhaps,  than    might   be   ex- 

95 


THOMAS    HARDY 

pected  from  the  even  good-nature  of  it  all. 
The  characters  do  not  do  much,  but  they 
admirably  live ;  the  figures  of  the  Mellstock 
quire,  moving  with  deliberate  humour  through 
the  scenes  of  this  naive  comedy,  obviously  come 
from  a  hand  that  has  gained  a  notable  plastic 
mastery  over  the  human  substance.  And  few 
books  take  their  readers  into  closer  friendship 
with  the  earth.  The  author's  genius  has  noth- 
ing more  to  learn  in  the  way  of  controlling  the 
skill  of  the  talent  submitted  to  it ;  the  powers 
here  employed  need  only  a  deeper  intellectual 
adventurousness  in  the  invention  of  theme,  to 
become  altogether  adequate  to  the  great  work 
soon  to  be  required  of  them. 


96 


V 
DRAMATIC   FORM 

FAR   FROM    THE   MADDING  iCROWD  I    THE   RETURN 

OF  THE  NATIVE  *.    THE  MAYOR  OF  CASTERBRIDGE  I 

THE    WOODLANDERS 

" .  .  .  It  was  one  of  those  sequestered  spots 
outside  the  gates  of  the  world  where  may 
usually  be  found  more  meditation  than  action, 
and  more  listlessness  than  meditation ;  where 
reasoning  proceeds  on  narrow  premisses,  and  re- 
sults in  inferences  wildly  imaginative  ;  yet  where, 
from  time  to  time,  dramas  of  a  grandeur  and 
unity  truly  Sophoclean  are  enacted  in  the  real, 
by  virtue  of  the  concentrated  passions  and  closely- 
knit  interdependence  of  the  lives  therein." 

This  sentence,  from  The  Woodlanders,  might 
very  well  be  taken  as  a  brief  declaration  of  the 
conditions  which  Hardy's  most  considerable 
fiction  has  chosen  for  its  governance ;  which, 
therefore,  we  must  recognize  if  we  are  to 
appreciate  it  properly.  We  are  not  bound  to 
believe  that  in  Wessex  Sophoclean  dramas 
actually  do  occur  "  in  the  real " ;  Hardy,  like 
g  97 


THOMAS   HARDY 

most  great  artists,  is  probably  too  much  absorbed 
in  his  art  to  perceive  clearly  the  profound  modi- 
fication of  reality  which  it  involves  ;  his  instinct, 
no  doubt,  is  to  see  reality  as  it  appears  in  his 
writings — as    something,    namely,    which    puts 
forth  into  sensible  expression  his  own  peculiar 
convictions.    But  this  instinct  is  formative ;  what 
it  sees,  it  makes ;  and  substance  thus  forged  to 
shapely  significance,  though  it  is  entirely  natural 
to  human  desires,  is  certainly  not  natural  to  raw 
objective  event.    What,  however,  the  latter  part 
of  the  sentence  quoted  may  truly  mean,  after 
allowing  for  the  too  generous  assertion  of  an 
artist  in  love  with  his  medium,  is  that  "  dramas 
of  a  grandeur  and  unity  truly  Sophoclean  "  may 
be  credibly  imagined  in  the  substance  proposed  ; 
without  any  violent  or  noticeable  manipulation, 
this  Wessex  life  will  obey  plastic  desires,  and 
pass  easily,    inevitably,  into  a  formal  embodi- 
ment of  significance — in  a  word,  into  tragedy. 
It  is  for  the  sake  of  unity  and  grandeur,  then, 
that   Hardy's   fiction   works   in   the   conditions 
this  substance  imposes  ;  for  unity,  the  complete 
achievement  of  form,  and  grandeur,  the  achieve- 
ment of  significance.     But  these  two  things  are 
not  distinctly  separable  one  from  another ;  they 
are,  indeed,  at  bottom  one  thing  only ;  for  what 
is  significance  in  art  but  the  formation,  intel- 
lectual or  emotional,  of  some  ultimate  relation- 

98 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

ship — the  casting  of  formal  control  as  far  as 
conception  can  reach  ?  Unity,  however,  is  the 
first  and  obvious  artistic  result  of  choosing  a 
material  so  isolated  from  the  rest  of  humanity, 
as  the  life  that  goes  on  in  these  "  sequestered 
spots  outside  the  gates  of  the  world."  For  the 
artist  who  desires,  as  all  great  artists  must,  to 
do  work  of  the  strict  and  triumphant  formality 
which  we  call  unity,  naturally  looks  for  some 
kind  of  human  substance  which  has  already  in 
itself  a  certain  separateness  from  the  generality 
of  life  ;  the  experiment  of  extracting  from  some 
special  instance  a  universal  symbol  requires  first 
of  all,  like  every  other  experiment,  boundary 
and  enclosure.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  the 
old  dramatists  delighted  in  kings  and  heroes ; 
not  primarily  because  they  were  signal  types  of 
life,  though  that  was  an  important  secondary 
reason,  but  because  in  them,  by  their  accidental 
position,  the  complete  isolation  required  by  art 
is  already  half  accomplished.  And  for  just  the 
same  reason  Hardy  chooses,  for  the  material  of 
his  art,  life  sequestered  and  rural.  Even  when 
the  scene  supposes  a  biggish  county  town,  like 
Dorchester  in  The  Mayor  of  Casterb?idge,  he 
is  at  pains  to  emphasize  the  peculiar  separate- 
ness of  its  life  from  the  main  community.  No 
general  significance  is  possible  in  a  work  of 
art  without  continual  submission,  through  the 

99 


THOMAS    HARDY 

whole  of  it,  to  a  single  purport — without,  that 
is  to  say,  formal  unity ;  and  formal  unity  is 
impossible  without  thorough  isolation  of  the 
substance.  So  we  have  the  apparent  paradox, 
that  an  art  of  general  significance  is  most  likely 
to  result  when  it  chooses  a  substance  obviously 
removed  from  the  general  activity  of  the  world. 
But  the  sequestered  humanity  with  which 
Hardy  treats  in  his  greatest  novels  is  further 
likely  to  yield  artistic  unity  and  significance  for 
very  important  secondary  reasons.  One  is,  as 
he  himself  points  out,  "  the  closely-knit  inter- 
dependence of  the  lives  therein."  There  needs 
no  elaborate  artifice  to  create  in  such  a  life  the 
human  complex,  sensitive  through  the  whole 
to  whatever  affects  its  parts,  which  is  the 
necessary  instrument  of  drama.  With  only  a 
slight  intensifying  of  actual  conditions,  the 
personalities  in  Hardy's  fiction  are  combined 
into  systems  of  singularly  intimate  linkages. 
The  communal  life  of  these  villages  results  in 
the  closest  interpenetration  of  influence  and  acci- 
dent ;  and  plainly  this  means  that  the  most 
perfect  unity  may  preside  over  a  very  com- 
plicated action.  But  this  life,  besides  com- 
pelling its  persons  to  fit  closely  in  with  one 
another,  is  also  one  of  gradual  and  roomy 
processes,  and  its  deliberate  existence  fosters 
deliberate  individual  character.     Passion  strikes 

100 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

deep  and  grows  large  ;  moreover,  its  dominance 
is  little  embarrassed  by  reasoned  analysis. 
Reasoning,  indeed,  will  here  incorporate  the 
desires  of  passion  as  readily  as  intellectual 
premisses,  and  cares  nothing  to  distinguish  the 
two  compulsions ;  so  that  the  simple,  unhesita- 
ting faithfulness  of  Diggory  Venn  is  as  easily 
credible  as  the  consuming  frenzy  of  Farmer 
Boldwood.  It  is  a  life,  too,  which  impregnates 
its  persons  deeply  with  the  impersonal  common 
vigours  of  the  earth.  Not  only  those  are  dyed 
by  their  surrounding  circumstance  of  nature, 
who  willingly  know  themselves  immersed 
therein,  like  Giles  Winterborne,  Gabriel  Oak,  and 
Marty  South  ;  but  those  also  who  rebel  against 
nature's  possessing  of  them,  like  Eustacia, 
Wildeve,  and  Bathsheba,  have,  will  they  nill  they, 
the  stain  of  it  in  the  tissues  of  their  characters. 
And  sometimes  this  immersion  of  personality 
in  the  larger  surrounding  life  of  nature  is  more 
acutely  felt  by  the  reader  when  it  appears,  not 
consciously  known  and  profoundly  delighted  in, 
but  in  those  who,  for  all  their  rebellion,  do  not 
perceive  how  completely  they  are  dipt ;  there  is 
an  exquisitely  subtle  hint  at  this  in  the  signals 
used  by  Eustacia  and  Wildeve — a  stone  thrown 
into  a  pool  to  sound  like  a  hop-frog,  a  moth  put 
through  the  chink  of  a  window  into  a  lighted 
room. 

101 


THOMAS   HARDY 

Now  these  latter  conditions  of  the  material  sub- 
stance Hardy's  fiction  has  chosen,  are  evidently 
just  those  suited  to  that  kind  of  "sightless  sub- 
stance " — that  species  of  tragic  significance — 
which  his  art  aims  at  evoking.  Characters  who 
are  without  the  protective  weakness  of  analytic 
introspection,  and  readily  give  themselves  to 
the  urgency  of  passion,  whether  slow  or  violent, 
are  moved  to  intensely  personal  effort  by  that 
which  is  the  main  impersonal  motive  force  of 
universal  vitality,  which,  indeed,  will  either  gain 
its  ends  without  troubling  about  the  conscious 
wishes  wherein  it  is  embodied,  or  will  destroy 
its  vehicle  in  striving  for  them.  Such  characters 
simultaneously  become  helpless  portions  of  life's 
impersonal,  ruthless  force,  and  thereby  become 
also  creatures  of  the  fiercest  personal  experience. 
Moreover,  there  strongly  flows  through  these 
characters  a  vigour  still  further  removed  from 
consciousness,  the  elemental  vigour  of  the  earth  ; 
of  this  their  passion  is  but  the  human  variety. 
In  an  art,  then,  which  has  such  characters  for 
its  conspicuous  figures,  the  unity  formed  in 
each  particular  human  complex  will  be  the 
general  significance  of  'personality  for  ever  moved 
to  assert  itself  against  the  implacable,  impersonal 
drift  of  things — gaining  thereby  not  the  desired 
alteration  of  the  unalterable,  but  simply  a  keener 
consciousness  of  human  destiny ;    which,  how- 

102 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

ever,  is  not  an  inconsiderable  gain.  The  complete 
formation  of  this  "  sightless  substance,"  in 
parallel  with  the  material  substance,  is  the  grand 
quality  of  Hardy's  characteristic  fiction. 

Of  the  six  great  novels  which  form  the  main 
building,  in  our  architectural  image,  of  Hardy's 
fiction,  the  two  which  were  latest  in  publication 
show  a  marked  difference  from  the  others  in 
their  form.  Roughly,  but  conveniently,  the 
earlier  books  may  be  called  dramatic,  the  two 
later  epic,  in  form.  The  difference  is  chiefly  in 
degree  of  complexity ;  but  it  is  enough  to  put 
Tess  of  the  UUrbervilles  and  Jude  the  Obscure 
distinctly  apart  from  the  others.  In  the  four 
earlier  novels,  the  action  is  a  woven  intricacy 
of  many  curving  and  recurving  lines,  carrying 
the  threaded  lives  of  several  persons  through  a 
single  complicated  pattern  of  destiny ;  for  as 
the  interest  of  the  story  concerns  not  one 
character,  but  several — a  group,  as  a  rule,  of 
four  contrasted  personalities — its  process  is  not 
a  simple  forward  motion,  but  a  system  of  vital 
currents  ramified  to  and  fro,  the  whole  elaborate 
event  obeying  one  general  trend.  They  are 
polyphony,  these  four  novels ;  whereas  the  two 
later  books  are  great  pieces  of  plain-song,  each 
concerned  with  one  human  theme,  which  goes 
forward  in  unswerving  continuity,  not  part  of 
a   broad    stream   of  counterpoint,    but   accom- 

103 


THOMAS   HARDY 

panied  by  tones  that  follow  it  in  unison.  The 
difference  between  the  two  sets  of  novels  is  the 
difference  between  a  history  of  an  individual, 
and  a  history  of  the  relationship  in  a  group  of 
individuals  ;  and  from  this  thematic  difference, 
formal  difference  naturally  follows.  But  The 
Mayor  of  Casterbridge,  while  clearly  belonging, 
as  regards  its  form,  to  the  dramatic  set,  is  in 
theme  a  partial  anticipation  of  the  epic  set ; 
since  the  history  of  the  relationship  which  sub- 
sists in  the  principal  group  of  characters  is  all 
focussed  in  the  individual  history  of  a  single 
figure,  Michael  Henchard. 

If  I  give  an  instance  of  the  way  in  which  the 
pattern  of  events  weaves  itself,  in  the  novels  of 
dramatic  form,  the  reason  for  this  classification 
will  appear  better  than  in  any  description.  A 
very  important  turn  is  given  to  the  plot  of  The 
Return  of  the  Native  by  the  mistake  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  Mrs.  Yeobright's  guineas.  Fifty 
guineas  each  should  have  gone  to  her  niece 
Thomasin  and  her  son  Clym ;  by  an  accident, 
the  whole  hundred  goes  to  Thomasin  and 
nothing  to  Clym.  This  accident  is  most 
elaborately  contrived.  Mrs.  Yeobright  is  un- 
able or  unwilling  to  visit  either  her  niece  or  her 
son ;  and  she  entrusts  the  delivery  of  the  two 
parcels  to  Christian  Cantle,  a  man  who  occasion- 
ally  works   for   her,   and    a   faithful  messenger 

104 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

enough,  but  rather  light-headed.  Cantle  goes 
off  with  the  parcels  stowed  in  his  boots,  and 
meets  some  friends  who  are  going  to  a  bagman's 
raffle  at  the  inn.  There  is  no  harm  in  his 
accompanying  them ;  and,  being  assured  that 
"  there  will  be  no  uproar  at  all,"  and  no  "  bady 
gaieties,"  he  goes  to  see  the  fun,  and  is  easily 
persuaded  to  take  part  in  the  raffle,  which  is 
decided  by  dice.  In  a  scene  of  admirable 
comedy,  he  wins  the  raffle ;  and,  full  of  amaze* 
ment  and  pride,  and  seeing  no  end  to  the  fortune 
he  may  make,  with  a  little  practice,  by  this 
newly  discovered  talent  of  his,  begs  to  be  given 
the  dice ;  which  is  allowed.  Then  he  sets  out 
in  earnest  on  his  errand ;  and  this  time  he  is 
accompanied  by  Wilde ve,  Thomasin's  husband. 
Now  Wildeve  had  previously  offered  to  carry 
Mrs.  Yeobright's  gift  to  his  wife,  but  had  been 
refused ;  and  he  suspects  that  the  half-wit 
Christian  has  been  employed  to  do  the  thing 
for  which  he  himself  was  not  thought  sufficiently 
trustworthy.  Nettled  at  this,  he  maliciously 
stirs  up  his  silly  companion's  new-found  enthu- 
siasm for  gambling ;  and  shortly  the  two  are 
hard  at  it,  dicing  for  Thomasin's  guineas,  at  the 
pathside  in  the  warm  summer  darkness,  by  the 
light  of  a  candle.  Wildeve  wins  Thomasin's 
fifty,  and  Cantle  begins  desperately  to  stake 
Clym's   guineas  ;  loses  these  too,  and  in  crazy 

105 


THOMAS   HARDY 

remorse  rushes  off  into  the  night.  Wilde ve's 
intention  had  apparently  been  to  distribute  the 
guineas  with  his  own  hands  as  Mrs.  Yeobright 
had  intended  ;  thus  quietly  rebuking  her  for  not 
trusting  him.  But  now  appears  on  the  scene 
the  reddleman,  Diggory  Venn,  Thomasin's 
faithful  but  disappointed  lover.  He  has  come 
up  unobserved,  has  watched  this  queer  mid- 
night game  of  dice,  and  has  taken  the  guineas, 
from  half-heard  snatches  of  Cantle's  talk,  to  be 
all  Thomasin's.  Venn,  like  Mrs.  Yeobright, 
thoroughly  mistrusts  Wilde ve ;  and  at  once 
concludes  to  attempt  winning  back  the  money 
and  himself  carrying  out  Mrs.  Yeobright's 
errand.  He  challenges  Wildeve  to  continue 
the  dicing,  and,  after  much  excitement,  wins 
the  whole  hundred.  Wildeve  sullenly  goes 
home ;  and  Venn  wraps  the  guineas  up  in  a 
screw  of  paper  and  hands  the  whole  lot  of  them 
to  Thomasin ;  thus,  with  the  best  intention, 
turning  Mrs.  Yeobright's  kindness  to  tragic 
misfortune,  as  it  turns  out. 

Such  construction  as  this  may  justly  be  called 
dramatic ;  its  finely  fitted  joinery  may  well 
have  been  suggested  by  Hardy's  loving  study 
of  Sophocles — evidently  an  influence  scarcely 
second  in  importance  to  his  architectural  studies. 
This  skilful  and  elaborate  contriving  of  an 
accident  in  itself  comparatively  simple,  power- 

106 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

fully  excites  and  maintains  the  reader's  interest. 
Briefly  extracted  from  the  book,  the  passage 
may  appear  to  be  the  work  of  some  artifice ;  it 
is  possible  to  criticize  the  remarkable  run  of 
luck  that  falls  first  to  Wildeve,  then  to  Venn. 
But  such  things  are  known ;  any  season  at  a 
casino  might  parallel  it.  And  unquestionably 
in  the  story  the  most  noticeable  effect  of  this 
complicated  pattern  of  events,  is  that  the  un- 
fortunate accident  falls  out  in  a  strangely  in- 
evitable way ;  so  far  from  seeming  artificial,  the 
series  of  occurrences  has  a  formidable  air  of 
unswerving  destiny.  Moreover,  it  enables  the 
story  to  proceed  in  a  succession,  not  simply  of 
events,  but  of  vivid  and  separate  scenes,  which 
the  reader  cannot  resist  imaginatively  visual- 
izing :  the  raffling  in  the  public-house,  the 
dicing  by  the  pathside  in  lantern  light  and  at 
last  in  glowworm  light.  What,  however,  is 
perhaps  even  more  important  for  us  to  notice 
here,  is  that  this  accident,  so  contrived,  becomes 
an  occurrence  not  in  the  history  of  the  one  or 
two  persons  directly  affected,  but  in  the  history 
of  the  relationship  of  a  whole  group  of  persons. 
The  train  of  its  happening,  from  Mrs.  Veobright 
to  Clym,  by  including  in  its  circuit  the  lives  of 
Wildeve  and  Venn,  and  passing  through  them, 
involves  the  whole  group  in  the  business  from 
the  very  beginning  of  it ;  binds  the  group  firmer 

107 


THOMAS   HARDY 

together,  and  adds  something  to  the  progressive 
fate  of  the  whole  relationship  ;  and  this  is  some- 
thing more  important  to  the  form  of  the  com- 
pleted story  than  that  which  the  misfortune 
adds  to  the  individual  fates  of  Clym  and 
Mrs.  Yeobright. 

In  three  of  these .  novels  of  dramatic  form — 
Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd,  The  Return  of 
the  Native,  The  Woodlanders — there  is  an  evi- 
dent similarity  of  the  human  material  used  in 
them.  The  central  group  of  characters  in  each 
is  a  set  of  four  persons,  two  men  and  two 
women  ;  and  each  group  is  composed  of  similar 
contrasts  and  similar  resemblances.  The  tensions 
within  the  groups  vary  somewhat ;  and  the 
characters,  moulded  by  differing  processes  of 
external  event,  show  differing  developments. 
But  the  three  stories  begin  with  almost  exactly 
the  same  set  of  ingredients ;  they  are,  in  fact, 
three  various  experiments  in  the  tragic  com- 
pounding of  the  same  ingredients.  The  simi- 
larity is  especially  noticeable  in  the  case  of  the 
men.  Gabriel  Oak,  Diggory  Venn,  and  Giles 
Winterborne  are  clearly  brothers ;  indeed,  a 
family  so  identical  in  feature,  physical,  mental, 
and  spiritual,  is  beyond  the  accomplishment  of 
human  generation.  These  three  men  are  but 
three  disguises  of  a  single  piece  of  psychological 
imagination  ;  and  the  disguising  is  scarcely  more 

108 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

than  a  difference  in  name,  in  trade,  and  fortune. 
But,  though  they  are  hardly  more  than  three 
instances  of  one  conception,  it  is  a  fine  and 
dignified  conception,  which  easily  bears  repeti- 
tion. The  steadfast  lover,  so  faithful  that 
personal  disappointment  is  of  no  account 
matched  with  the  welfare  of  the  beloved,  is 
the  natural  flowering  here  of  "  plain  heroic 
magnitude  of  mind " ;  of  a  life  whose  whole 
conduct  is  simple  unquestioning  patience,  a 
tolerant  fortitude  deeply  rooted  in  the  earth, 
and  directly  nourished  by  the  imperceptible 
vigours  of  impersonal  nature.  Set  off  against 
Oak,  Venn,  and  Winterborne,  are  three  instances 
of  one  kind  of  contrast — Troy,  Wildeve,  and 
Fitzpiers :  sharp  intellects,  genteel  manners,  in- 
flammable faithless  passions,  shallow  good- 
nature, and  flashy  disdain  for  rusticity.  Except 
perhaps  for  Troy,  these  characters  are  not  so 
firmly  imagined  as  the  figures  they  oppose ; 
they  have  rather  the  air  of  being  invented  to 
provide  the  required  opposition.  But  there  is 
more  variety  in  the  detailed  character  of  these 
genteel  figures  than  in  the  contrasting  set ; 
though  it  is  for  the  most  part  the  variety  shown 
by  similar  characters  inhabiting  different  stations 
of  life.  They  are,  all  three,  unstable  swagger- 
ing natures ;  but  Troy,  the  bastard  slip  of  a 
noble   family,    enlisted    in    the   cavalry,    has    a 

109 


THOMAS   HARDY 

romantic  daring  virility,  trickster  though  he 
is,  that  finds  no  counterpart  in  the  mean  shifti- 
ness of  Wildeve,  the  engineer  turned  publican  ; 
and  Fitzpiers,  the  unsuccessful  doctor  with  a 
taste  for  metaphysics,  is  a  creature  of  subtler 
passions  than  either  of  the  others. 

The  female  members  of  the  three  groups 
arrange  themselves  into  similar  oppositions : 
Bathsheba,  Eustacia,  and  Grace  Melbury, 
against  Fanny  Robin,  Thomasin  Yeobright, 
and  Marty  South ;  on  the  whole,  capricious, 
passionate,  self-conscious  natures — not  all  im- 
patient of  their  rural  surroundings,  but  all 
interested  chiefly  in  their  own  vanity  and  fine- 
ladyism — are  set  against  patience,  simplicity, 
and  humility.  But  one  has  only  to  read 
through  this  list  of  names  to  be  reminded  that 
Hardy's  psychological  imagination  is  much 
better  suited,  in  the  main,  to  the  creation  of 
feminine  than  of  masculine  character.  For  as 
regards  their  heroines,  these  three  novels  have 
no  similarity  at  all,  except  for  each  showing 
broadly  the  same  kind  of  contrast.  Each  pair 
of  opposites  is  far  from  repeating,  in  slightly 
varying  terms,  the  same  pair  of  psychological 
conceptions  ;  Hardy's  power  of  inventing  femin- 
ine character  has  been  able  to  effect  a  similar 
contrast  in  three  completely  different  couples 
of  antagonists,  so  that  Bathsheba,  Eustacia,  and 

110 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

Grace  repeat  each  other  as  little  as  Fanny, 
Thomasin,  and  Marty.  Moreover,  in  the  case 
of  the  men,  Hardy  has  to  show  off  the  generous 
qualities  of  his  faithful  characters  by  making 
their  opponents  contemptible ;  but  with  the 
women,  the  complex  personalities  are  as  admir- 
able as  their  simpler  opposites,  and  often 
perhaps  more  lovable — unquestionably  more 
commanding. 

The  chief  human  material,  then,  in  each  of 
these  three  novels,  is  a  quartette  of  personalities, 
simple  and  complex,  one  of  each  quality  in  each 
sex.  But  the  emotional  tensions  which  bind 
these  groups  together  are  variously  devised. 
The  reader  may  be  amused  with  some  formulae 
for  these  arrangements.  Suppose  we  turn  the 
personalities  into  algebra  by  putting  A1  for 
masculine  simplicity,  and  A2  for  feminine  sim- 
plicity, B1  for  masculine  complexity  and  B2  for 
feminine  complexity ;  then  (as  the  text-books 
say)  we  have  : — 

In  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd,  A1  loves 

B 2,  who  loves  B1,  who  loves  A2. 
In    The  Return  of  the  Native,  A1  loves  A2, 

who  loves  B1,  who  loves  B2. 
In  The  Woodlanders,  A2  loves  A1,  who  loves 

B2,  who  loves  B1. 

These  formulae   stand   for   the  groups  as  they 

111 


THOMAS   HARDY 

first  definitely  arrange  themselves.  The  reader 
need  not  be  too  serious  over  this  critical  algebra  ; 
which  is  not  without  its  use,  however,  in  analys- 
ing the  art  of  Hardy's  fiction — an  art  made 
of  too  noble  a  stuff  to  be  damaged  by  such 
mathematical  abstraction.  We  see  at  once  how 
each  series  of  lovers,  unable  without  disloca- 
tion to  form  a  "  closed  chain,"  is  deliberately 
arranged  for  tragedy.  The  system  of  emotional; 
tensions  does  not,  of  course,  remain  the  same 
through  each  novel ;  the  tensions  slacken,  shift, 
or  are  broken  off.  Each  book,  in  fact,  narrates 
the  history  of  a  system  of  such  tensions,  almost 
as  if  this  were  an  organism ;  and  perhaps  it  is. 
The  matter  of  the  story  is  the  response  given 
to  the  processes  of  externality  not  simply  by  a 
group  of  individuals,  but  by  the  "  sightless  sub- 
stance "  of  compounded  emotion  which  the  group 
creates,  a  substance  which  (a  "  unanimiste  "  would 
say)  is  itself  an  individual  existence ;  it  is  some- 
thing, at  any  rate,  capable  of  receiving  injury 
and  invigoration  from  destiny. 

But  besides  the  varying  arrangement  within 
the  groups,  there  is  important  modification  of 
their  system  introduced  by  additional  members 
in  each  of  these  three  novels ;  and  these  have  a 
function  in  each  story  as  serious  as  that  held  by 
the  representatives  of  the  constant  group.  In 
Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd,  the  emotional 

112 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

system  is  complicated  by  the  fiercely  kindled 
Boldwood,  in  whose  passionate  heart  love 

"  flings  about  his  burning  heat 
As  in  a  furnace  an  ambitious  fire, 
Whose  vent  is  stopt." 

Mrs.  Yeobright,  with  her  formidable  pride, 
and  Clym,  with  his  scepticism  in  worldly  affairs 
and  his  sincere  indifference  to  success,  contribute 
notably  to  the  tragic  stuff  of  The  Return  of  the 
Native.  And  Melbury,  doubting  whether  to 
give  his  daughter,  out  of  remorse,  to  Giles,  or 
to  give  her  to  the  taking  and  well-born  Fitz- 
piers  out  of  affectionate  ambition,  puts  a 
pathetic  bias  on  the  emotional  process  of  The 
Woodlanders  ;  as,  in  the  same  book,  Mrs.  Char- 
mond  goes  with  Grace  in  the  contrast  of 
refined  womanhood  against  Marty  South's 
patience  and  rusticity,  supplying  the  whole 
business  with  that  element  of  capricious  passion, 
the  lack  of  which  sets  Grace  clearly  apart  from 
Eustacia  and  Bathsheba.  But  we  shall  go  very 
far  wrong,  if  we  suppose  that  any  analysis  of 
the  emotional  stresses,  round  which  these  novels 
are  constructed,  will  give  us  the  key  to  their 
whole  result ;  we  have,  after  all,  only  been 
examining  their  mechanics.  It  is,  certainly, 
interesting  and  important  to  note,  that  in  novels 
of  such  various  complete  result— rather,  in 
H  113 


THOMAS    HARDY 

novels  which  give  such  varying  guise  to  the 
general  significance  underlying  all  Hardy's 
characteristic  work — the  art  should  be  so 
similarly  mechanized.  But  exactly  what  it  is 
that  this  mechanism  of  complicated  emotions 
works  to  produce,  is  not  so  easily  seized  into 
words.  To  be  sure,  we  can  say  that  the  attitude 
to  nature  held  by  the  persons  in  each  central 
group,  is  as  weighty  in  the  whole  effect  as 
the  composite  plotting  of  emotions  more 
easily  describable — love,  jealousy,  enmity.  For 
Gabriel  Oak's  or  Marty  South 's  willing  im- 
mersion in  the  common  life  of  earth,  and 
Wildeve's  or  Eustacia's  desire  to  be  refined 
above  it,  easily  stand  symbolic  of  personality 
knowing  itself  carried  down  one  endless  uni- 
versal tendency,  now  acquiescing  in  the  current, 
now  wilful  against  it.  And  this  will  sum  up  for 
us  the  general  significance.  Yet  this  takes  us 
only  a  little  way ;  for  it  is  the  jorm  which  the 
significance  acquires  that  is  the  really  important 
thing.  Nothing  less  than  the  whole  story,  with 
all  its  complexity  of  character  and  emotion,  its 
main  trend  and  its  minutely  framed  plot,  its 
comedy  and  tragedy,  its  groundwork  of  vital 
earth— nothing  less  than  all  this  will  give  us  the 
real  result ;  nothing  less  than  the  thing  itself,  in 
fact.  Hardy's  fiction,  at  its  best,  is  like  music 
in  this ;  for  what  a  piece  of  music  really  means 

114 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

is  simply  the  music,  and  just  so  the  whole  mean- 
ing of  the  story  is — the  story.  This  is  what 
the  mastery  of  form,  and  nothing  else,  can  do. 
Three  books  start  with  closely  similar  material, 
mechanized  after  exactly  the  same  fashion,  and 
yield,  in  the  end,  one  characteristic  significance. 
Yet  the  books  are  three  essentially  different 
works  of  art ;  for  they  are  three  expressions 
of  formal  mastery ;  and  formal  mastery  never 
repeats  itself. 

In  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd,  the  story 
opens  in  the  large  air  of  pastoral  life ;  the  vivid 
description  of  a  night  of  stars  seen  from  a 
lonely  hill-top,  when  the  earth  seems  to  be 
perceptibly  swinging  through  the  void,  is  an 
admirable  prelude  to  the  "  sightless  substance  " 
of  the  tragedy,  with  its  essential  element  of 
universal  unalterable  movement,  just  as  the 
horrible  disaster  to  Oak's  flock  preludes  the 
material  substance  of  the  drama.  But  the  story 
soon  passes  from  this  upland  atmosphere,  and 
remains  in  the  placid,  delicious  region  of  farm- 
ing life  in  the  lowlands — Bathsheba  Everdene's 
homestead,  and  the  village  of  Weatherbury, 
set  in  the  beautiful  English  fertility.  The  life 
is  exciting  enough  in  moments :  witness  the 
feverish  trouble  caused  on  that  sleepy  Sunday 
afternoon  by  the  sheep  breaking  fence  and  in- 
vading a  field  of  young  clover — "and  they  be 

115 


THOMAS    HARDY 

getting  blasted  .  .  .  and  will  all  die  as  dead  as 
nits."  But  in  the  main  it  is  a  life  quietly  rich 
with  sedate  activity ;  this  is  the  external  con- 
dition which,  combining  with  the  emotional 
energies  it  surrounds  and  penetrates,  like  sub- 
stance in  a  dissolving  liquor,  works  out  the 
unique  complete  result  of  the  whole  story.  No 
book  of  Hardy's  has  such  a  wealth  of  profound 
and  splendid  comedy ;  the  band  of  labourers — 
Joseph  Poorgrass,  Laban  Tall,  Mark  Clark, 
Matthew  Moon,  Henery  Fray,  Jan  Coggan, 
the  old  malter  and  young  Cain  Ball — is  an 
achievement  which,  for  easy  inspiration  of 
genius,  can  only  be  matched  in  the  very  greatest 
literature.  In  several  scenes  the  elemental 
comedy  of  these  rustic  immortals  is  without 
doubt  Shakespearean  in  degree  as  well  as  in 
kind  ;  in  the  scene,  for  instance,  when  Joseph 
Poorgrass  and  Jan  Coggan  are  drinking  together 
while  the  body  of  poor  Fanny  Robin  lies  on  the 
waggon  outside.  And  this  comedy  is  woven 
into  the  tragedy  with  exquisite  discretion.  The 
tragedy  (it  must  be  called  so,  in  spite  of  its 
peaceful  close)  is,  of  course,  dominated  by  the 
spirited,  wilful  figure  of  Bathsheba — Bathsheba, 
whose  caprice  is  responsible  for  the  death  of 
Troy  and  the  worse  than  death  of  Boldwood, 
who,  though  not  overtly  rebellious  against  her 
surroundings,   is   implicitly   so   by   her   ladyish 

116 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

delicacy,  and  yet  is,  we  must  surely  admit, 
thoroughly  worthy  of  Oak's  dogged  and  tireless 
adoration :  a  figure  in  which  feminine  charm 
and  feminine  destructiveness  are  wonderfully 
mingled. 

Eustacia,  in  The  Return  of  the  Native,  is  a 
more  impressive,  but  much  less  charming  figure. 
She  does  not,  indeed,  charm  at  all — it  is  not 
in  her  nature ;  she  conquers  and  commands. 
Wilfulness  becomes  stormy  passion  in  her, 
caprice  turns  to  scornful  determination  to  have 
in  all  things  no  law  but  her  own  nature.  And 
yet  there  is  a  gloomy  readiness  in  her  to  take 
the  smallest  adverse  turn  in  her  fortune  as 
evidence  of  an  immense  malicious  fate  arrayed 
against  her.  The  process  of  things  is  not  for 
her  a  blind  chance-medley  of  onward  motions ; 
the  world  is  a  huge  deliberate  conspiracy,  con- 
sciously inventing  devices  for  her  ruin :  nothing 
less  than  this  will  her  pride  believe  in ;  for  her 
nature  is  tragic,  and  she  must  be  the  centre  of 
her  universe.  Hence  this  tragic  fiction  of  her 
own  insatiable  pride  for  ever  threatens  her  ;  and 
she  for  ever  looks  it  down  with  fierce  contempt. 
There  is  grandeur  in  this  perverse,  unhappy 
woman.  If  Sue  Bridehead  is  the  subtlest  of 
Hardy's  feminine  characters,  Eustacia  Vye  has 
the  deepest  force.  She  is  one  of  those  figures 
who  are   not   only   themselves,  but  their   own 

117 


THOMAS   HARDY 

incarnate  destiny.  They  are  in  a  world  which 
is  a  tragic  poetry  of  their  own  creation ;  for  it 
is  a  world  made  by  "  submitting  the  shows  of 
things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind,"  and  these 
are  the  dangerous  desires  for  self-importance, 
which  find  a  heady  satisfaction  in  standing 
upright  and  unconquerable  against  a  world  of 
enmity.  And  so  the  tragic  poetry  of  their  own 
notional  world  at  last  overwhelms  them ;  since 
they  are  unconsciously  bent  towards  those 
actions  whose  result  is  likely  to  make  their 
actual  world  conform  to  the  world  of  their 
imaginative  pride.  Such  is  Eustacia.  And  the 
story  she  moves  in  has  an  atmosphere  altogether 
suited  to  her.  There  is  admirable  comedy  in  it ; 
but  not  quite  of  such  quality  as  that  of  Far 
from  the  Madding  Crowd,  not  comedy  that 
searches  life  as  deeply  as  tragedy  itself.  Neither 
is  it  so  broadly  distributed,  being  chiefly  pro- 
vided by  Christian  Cantle  with  his  starts  and 
terrors,  and  old  Grandfer  Cantle,  absurdly 
industrious  in  jocularity,  and  as  absurdly  vain- 
glorious, especially  on  the  militarism  of  his 
youth  :  "  there  wasn't  a  finer  figure  in  the  whole 
South  Wessex  than  I,  as  I  looked  when  dash- 
ing past  the  shop-windows  with  the  rest  of  our 
company  on  the  day  we  ran  out  o'  Budmouth 
because  it  was  thoughted  that  Boney  had 
landed  round  the  point."    These  lighter  passages 

118 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

scarcely  interrupt  the  steady  process  of  the 
tragedy,  and  certainly  nothing  dilute  its  con- 
stant intensity.  Egdon  Heath,  with  all  its 
sights  and  sounds  so  vividly  and  inescapably 
imagined,  presides  over  the  story,  a  vast,  care- 
less oppression.  In  no  book  of  Hardy's  is  the 
ceaseless  drifting  power  of  material  fate  so 
impressively  or  so  directly  typified — neither 
malignant  nor  benevolent,  but  simply  in- 
different, unconscious  of  its  freightage  of  a 
humanity  not  so  much  struggling  as  vainly 
desiring  against  its  relentless  motion.  And 
Eustacia,  by  so  pitiably  mistaking  the  in- 
difference of  its  motion  for  malignity,  does 
actually  turn  it  into  malignity  on  herself  and 
on  the  others  :  tragedy  the  inevitable  answer  to 
personality's  self-assertion  against  the  impersonal 
power  of  the  world — the  fundamental  tragedy 
of  the  human  state,  according  to  this  meta- 
physic.  The  book  goes  through  an  astonishing 
series  of  memorable  scenes :  the  bonfire ;  Eus- 
tacia on  the  heath  alone,  or  disguised  among 
the  mummers ;  the  dicing  by  the  roadside ; 
Mrs.  Yeobright's  death  from  the  adder's  sting ; 
Susan's  magic  image.  The  story  is  one  that 
cannot  be  merely  read  ;  to  the  feeblest  imagina- 
tion, it  must  surely  act  itself  in  clearest 
visualization. 

In  The  Woodlanders  the  story  is  placed  under 
119 


THOMAS    HARDY 

the  dominance  of  a  much  more  kindly  aspect 
of  nature ;  but  the  dominance  is  scarcely  less 
masterful.  The  villagers  are  drencht  by  the 
subtle  influence  of  their  surrounding  woods. 
Melbury's  infatuated  fears  for  the  gentility  of 
his  well-educated  daughter  finely  realize  this ; 
he  is  anxious  not  only  of  the  effect  rustic 
manners,  and  seclusion  from  the  nice  world, 
may  have  on  her — "  her  bounding  walk  becom- 
ing the  regular  Hintock  shail-and-wamble  " — 
but  of  the  formidable  assimilating  power  of  the 
earth,  of  which  he  himself  is  perfectly  conscious  : 
"  we,  living  here  alone,  don't  notice  how  the 
whitey-brown  creeps  out  of  the  earth  over  us," 
as  he  quaintly  puts  it ;  but  he  knows  quite  well 
that  the  "  whitey-brown  "  does  creep  over  him, 
and  not  only  over  clothes  and  skin,  but  into 
mind  and  spirit.  The  book,  however,  is  full  of 
a  profound  penetration  of  humanity  by  nature  ; 
Marty  South 's  father,  whose  life  was  strangely 
linked  to  the  life  of  a  tree,  which  he  feared,  but 
could  not  survive,  is  the  obvious  type  of  it.  But 
Marty  South  herself,  and  Giles  Winterborne, 
both  suffering  bitter  frustration  of  personal 
desire,  but  both  deeply  acquiescing  in  the  pro- 
cess of  impersonal  life  that  has  them  in  its 
power — these  two  are  the  characters  who,  more 
than  any  others,  give  the  book  its  special 
quality.     And   these  two,   who  have  the  chief 

120 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

share  of  the  elements  of  Hardy's  tragedy — un- 
yielding personal  desire,  mixt  with  the  sense 
of  frustrating  impersonal  life  carrying  them 
forward — are  the  characters  whom  events  most 
severely  punish ;  Giles  for  loving  the  refined 
Grace,  Marty  for  loving  Giles,  and  both  for 
being  steadfast  in  love.  From  often  working 
together  among  the  trees,  the  two  have  a  vast 
common  knowledge  of  nature's  ways  in  wood- 
land earth ;  but  Marty's  is  the  more  delicate 
apprehension ;  it  is  she,  for  instance,  who 
notices  that  the  young  pines  begin  to  sigh  as 
soon  as  they  are  held  upright :  "  they  sigh 
because  they  are  very  sorry  to  begin  life  in 
earnest."  Marty,  indeed,  is  by  far  the  greatest 
and  noblest  of  Hardy's  types  of  simple-natured 
womanhood.  Her  psychology  is  an  imagina- 
tion as  inspired  as  that  of  Eustacia  herself;  and 
for  sheer  beauty  of  character  there  is  no  one 
like  her  through  all  the  Wessex  Novels.  Sorrow 
and  bitter  hard  work  and  humiliation  have  been 
with  her  all  her  life ;  but  the  sweetness  of  her 
mind  and  the  iron  endurance  of  her  spirit  are 
not  to  be  hurt  by  such  things.  Her  sense  of 
coming  tragedy  is  utterly  different  from  Eus- 
tacia's  ;  she  quietly  knows  that  pain  will  reward 
such  love  as  hers ;  but  she  will  neither  try  to 
escape  it  nor  go  to  meet  it ;  whatever  happens, 
her  unalterable  love  is  her  own.     The  tragedy 

121 


THOMAS   HARDY 

of  the  book  is  subdued  compared  with  that  of 
The  Return  of  the  Native  ;  but  it  has  a  terribly 
moving  climax  in  the  death  of  Giles,  and  a  close 
of  keenest  pathos,  of  sorrow  intolerably  sweet, 
in  Marty's  lament  over  his  grave.  He  must 
have  eyes  of  horn  who  can  read  the  words  of 
her  exalted,  yet  exquisitely  poignant  grief,  with 
no  mist  troubling  his  sight.  1  think  we  should 
have  to  go  to  Wordsworth,  to  find  a  great, 
settled  depth  of  emotion  expressed  with  more 
perfect  simplicity,  than  in  this  last  speech  of 
Marty's,  ending  with  a  praise  of  goodness  that 
all  unconsciously  praises  her  own  most  beautiful 
quality :  "  If  ever  I  forget  your  name  let  me 
forget  home  and  heaven !  .  .  .  But  no,  no,  my 
love,  I  never  can  forget  'ee ;  for  you  was  a  good 
man,  and  did  good  things  !  " — It  is  a  good  woman 
who  speaks  so. 

In  none  of  these  three  novels  is  there  a  con- 
sistently central  character ;  the  central  subject, 
as  I  have  said,  is  rather  the  emotional  relation- 
ship combining  a  group  of  persons,  and  the 
changes  caused  in  this  relationship  by  a  current 
of  events  ;  though  there  are  degrees  of  personal 
force  in  the  members  of  each  group.  But  in 
The  Life  and  Death  of  the  Mayor  of  Caster- 
bridge,  the  last  but  one,  in  order  of  publication, 
of  the  novels  I  have  called  dramatic,  there  is  a 
distinct  change  in  the  manner  of  the  conception. 

122 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

The  title  hints  at  the  change ;  and  still  more 
the  sub-title ;  for  this  is  the  "  story  of  a  man 
of  character."  Here,  then,  it  is  the  strength  of 
a  single  person  that  is  to  be  submitted  to  a  pro- 
cess of  impersonal  event ;  it  is  the  tragedy  of 
one  man,  not  of  a  group.  His  is  the  life  through 
which  the  ceaseless  electricity  of  universal  force 
is  to  be  shown  pouring ;  much  more  evidently 
through  him,  at  least,  than  through  a  circuit  of 
several  lives.  And  it  is  his  spirit  that  is  to 
resist  with  its  own  desires  the  fatal  energy  of 
general  existence,  burning  to  incandescence  with 
its  resistance,  and  at  last  broken  with  its  burn- 
ing. To  this  concentration  on  the  life  of  a 
single  individual,  Hardy's  fiction  was,  it  seems, 
naturally  tending ;  though  The  Woodlanders 
comes  after  it,  The  Mayo?'  of  Casterbridge 
shows  the  change  from  dramatic  fiction  to  the 
epic  fiction  of  Tess  of  the  UUrbervilles  and 
Jude  the  Obscure  to  be,  not  a  sudden  jump, 
but  a  gradual  development.  For  in  The  Mayo?' 
of  Casterbridge,  Hardy  is  still  held  by  his 
dramatic  style  of  construction.  In  its  concep- 
tion, the  story  really  concerns  Michael  Henchard 
alone ;  but  the  book  is  engined  with  the  familiar 
group-mechanism  of  the  three  other  novels. 
The  construction  obeys  the  necessity  of  keep- 
ing the  group  fastened  together  and  all  con- 
cerned  in  the    history ;    but   it    is    Henchard's 

123 


THOMAS    HARDY 

history,  and  for  that  the  whole  construction, 
and  the  other  members  of  the  group,  properly 
exist.  This  is  not  at  all  like  what  occurs  in  the 
other  dramatic  novels.  The  group,  however,  is 
still  substantially  the  same ;  at  any  rate,  it  is 
made  up  of  similar  kinds  of  opposition,  though 
these  cannot  fall  into  a  similar  series  of  emotional 
stresses,  since  one  member  of  the  group  of 
four  principals  is  the  daughter  of  another.  But 
Lucetta  is  evidently  on  Eustacia's  side,  as 
Elizabeth  Jane  is  on  Thomasin's ;  and  the 
rough  vigour  of  Henchard  is  contrasted  with, 
and  opposed  to,  Farfrae's  cleverness  and  nicety, 
very  much  as  Diggory  Venn  is  against  Wildeve. 
In  the  psychology  of  the  two  male  characters  in 
this  group,  however,  there  is  no  repetition  of 
the  other  groups.  Farfrae  is  an  excellent  good 
fellow,  and  worthily  engages  the  affections  of 
those  who  know  him ;  Gabriel  Oak  could  not 
be  further  from  shifty  dealing  or  flighty  passion. 
For  any  injury  Henchard  takes  from  him,  the 
fault  certainly  does  not  lie  with  Farfrae.  And 
Henchard  is  only  to  be  compared  with  the 
simple-natured  men  in  the  other  three  groups, 
for  the  unconscious  primitive  strength  which  he 
seems  to  draw,  like  them,  straight  from  the 
earth.  Oak,  Venn,  and  Winterborne  are  static 
characters  ;  but  Henchard  is  above  everything 
dynamic,  and  there  are  forces  in  him  of  much 

124 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

greater  depth  and  much  greater  variety  than  in 
any  of  the  others.— To  the  central  group  of 
four  chief  figures,  other  figures  are  more  or  less 
loosely  attached :  Susan  Henchard,  pathetic 
nonentity ;  Newson,  the  genial  trusting  sailor ; 
and  the  furmity-seller,  the  haggish  destiny  in 
Henchard's  tragedy. 

The  processes  of  nature,  which  are  so  care- 
fully and  vividly,  and  with  such  obvious  sym- 
bolic purport,  mingled  into  the  substance  of  the 
three  other  dramatic  novels,  are  scarcely  present 
in  The  Mayor  of  Caster  bridge.  But  they  are 
not  needed  ;  Henchard  himself  takes  their  place. 
He  is,  probably,  the  greatest  instance  of  mascu- 
line characterization  in  Hardy's  fiction ;  Jude's 
history  may  be  the  more  significant,  but  Jude 
is  conceived  in  a  narrower  mould  than  Henchard. 
He  himself  altogether  provides  the  two  main 
elements  which  combine  to  produce  tragedy. 
In  the  rest  of  Hardy's  fiction,  these  tragic 
elements  are,  on  the  whole,  separately  provided, 
by  personality,  and  by  the  circumstances  which 
have  hold  of  personality.  But  the  elemental 
antinomy,  which  is  the  basis  of  Hardy's  tragedy, 
is  entirely  Henchard's  own ;  the  antinomy  of 
the  ruthless  driving  forward  of  the  main  un- 
appointed  force  of  being,  against  the  vitality 
which  has  become  formulated  into  an  organism 
of  conscious  desire.   Henchard's  conscious  aspira- 

125 


THOMAS   HARDY 

tions  are  undone  by  the  impetuous  stream  of  un- 
conscious vigour  which  his  own  being  provides, 
and  fatally  provides.  So  he  himself  appears  as  the 
symbolic  counterpart  of  the  whole  tragic  sub- 
stance of  the  other  dramatic  novels.  There,  that 
substance  is  chiefly  compounded  of  inner  and 
outer  forces ;  though  certainly  the  outer  im- 
personal force  has  always  a  strong  alliance  in  that 
impersonal  region  which  surrounds  the  conscious- 
ness of  every  human  creature,  and  yet  is  included 
in  individual  existence.  But  in  Henchard,  human 
nature's  dualism  of  personal  and  impersonal 
force  is  so  intensified  that  his  whole  circum- 
stance, as  far  as  it  is  injurious  to  him,  seems 
but  the  obj edification  of  his  own  self-injuring 
nature.  The  significance  of  The  Mayo?'  of 
Casterbridge  is,  therefore,  in  every  way  a  notable 
variation  on  the  general  theme  of  Hardy's 
dramatic  fiction. 

Henchard,  however,  besides  the  deep  primal 
discord  of  his  nature,  has,  within  the  boundaries 
of  his  consciousness,  a  great  deal  of  complexity  ; 
or  perhaps  it  were  better  said,  of  variety ;  for  it 
is  a  character  above  everything  straightforward. 
But  the  surprising  turns  his  conduct  takes  all 
have  the  effect,  once  they  have  happened,  not 
of  confusing  but  of  confirming  the  definition  of 
his  personality.  His  first  passionate  affection 
for  Farfrae  changes  into  a  sulky  admission  that 

126 


DRAMATIC   FORM 

clever  wits  will  go  farther  than  untaught 
vigour ;  and  this  in  turn  causes  him  suddenly 
to  force  Farfrae  into  rivalship,  desperately 
determined  to  prove  himself  the  better  man  ; 
and  having  made  a  rival  of  Farfrae,  he  furiously 
hates  him  for  the  treachery  to  their  early  friend- 
ship, which  is  entirely  his  own  doing:  it  is  all 
inevitable.  Then  there  is  a  sort  of  fierce  honour 
in  the  man.  His  hatred  of  Farfrae  would  go  to 
any  length  ;  but  when  he  deliberately  attempts 
to  kill  him,  it  must  be  by  fair  fight,  and  he 
pinions  his  own  arm  to  lessen  the  advantage  of 
his  strength.  This  is  an  astonishing  stroke  of 
character-drawing ;  and  it  is  finely  supported 
by  other  incidents ;  when,  for  instance,  Lucetta 
pitiably  puts  herself  in  his  power,  and  to  ruin 
her  would  be  also  to  ruin  the  detested  Farfrae, 
Henchard  scornfully  throws  her  letter  on  the 
fire.  Indeed,  when  we  are  examining  this  book, 
the  superb  psychology  of  Michael  Henchard 
yields  such  a  fascination,  that  we  are  tempted 
to  think  his  character  the  essence  of  the  story. 
But  it  is  no  more  this,  than  is  the  striking  series 
of  scenes  and  incidents  through  which  the  story 
moves :  Henchard's  selling  his  wife  in  the  furmity- 
tent — surely  one  of  the  most  cogent  beginnings 
of  narrative  in  the  world— ;  the  skimmity- 
ride ;  Susan  Henchard's  death,  with  the  pennies 
she  provided  to  weigh  down  her  eyelids  (pennies 

127 


THOMAS   HARDY 

which  Christopher  Coney  dug  up  and  drank), 
and  her  direction  to  "  open  the  windows  as  soon 
as  I  am  carried  out,"  and  that  fine  elegy  from 
wicked  old  Mother  Cuxsom  ("  and  all  her  shining 
keys  will  be  took  from  her,  and  her  cupboards 
opened  ;  and  little  things  'a  didn't  wish  seen, 
anybody  will  see ") ;  the  boosy  conversations 
of  Mixen  Lane ;  and  so  on.  Art  like  Thomas 
Hardy's  fiction  is  not  to  be  abstracted  in  analyses 
of  plot  and  character.  The  story,  with  all  its 
detail,  and  the  inevitable  process  of  Henchard's 
history,  from  the  sin  that  braces  him  with  re- 
morse to  make  some  good  of  life,  through  the 
heights  of  his  prosperity,  down  to  the  anguished 
resignation  confessed  in  his  scribbled  will — the 
story  is  a  great  particular  instance,  put  into 
objective  formality,  of  the  tragic  metaphysic 
behind  a  noble  artist's  conception  of  the  world. 
It  is  not  one  man's  old  sin  finding  him  out ; 
but  a  type  of  the  general  sin  of  personal 
existence,  and  personal  desire,  in  a  universe  of 
indifferent  fate.  And  the  tragedy  is  not  so 
much  punishment  exacted  for  this,  as  the 
stubborn  endurance  of  the  punishment.  But 
just  how  this  formal  typification  is  done,  is  only 
to  be  seen  in  the  whole  story  itself. 


128 


VI 
EPIC    FORM 

TESS  OF   THE  d'uRBERVILLESI    JUDE  THE  OBSCURE 

In  dramatic  art,  whether  cast  as  a  novel  or  as 
a  play,  the  materials,  besides  forming  a  vivid 
picture  of  familiar  existence,  may  easily  be 
moulded  into  some  close  conspiracy  to  express 
the  author's  peculiar  way  of  understanding  the 
world  and  the  human  state  in  it.  But  in  any 
kind  of  drama — concerned  as  it  must  be  with  a 
definite  and  intricate  complex  of  personalities, 
and  needing  all  its  formal  power  to  hold  the 
history  of  that  turbulent  and  struggling  stuff 
within  some  shapeliness  of  enclosure — it  is  in 
the  highest  degree  inconvenient,  scarcely  to  be 
managed  without  notable  injury  to  the  form,  to 
make  overt  declaration  of  the  sense  in  which 
the  author  takes  his  own  apprehension  of  the 
world  ;  whether,  namely,  life,  in  this  conception 
of  his,  seems  to  him  a  bad  business  or  something 
cordially  acceptable.  Human  nature  may  be 
dramatized  in  an  exact  and  (in  the  art)  altogether 
credible  co-ordination  with  some  conceived  re- 
i  129 


THOMAS   HARDY 

lationship  of  the  finite  being  of  persons  to  the 
infinite  being  of  the  universe ;  and  yet  the 
result  may — and  indeed  almost  certainly  must 
— leave  room  for  further  conclusions  ;  for  what 
our  emotions,  our  sense  of  justice  and  of  ulti- 
mate fitness,  are  to  make  of  it  all :  how,  in  fact, 
we  are  to  feel  the  whole  result.  Granted  that 
we  may  receive,  say,  Macbeth,  or  the  Duchess 
of  Malfy,  or  Brand,  or  Michael  Henchard,  as 
artistically  true  presentation  of  life,  the  dramatic 
art  nevertheless  leaves  it  an  open  question, 
whether  life  so  represented  is  to  be  desired  or 
r.nt ;  the  question  must  be  answered  personally, 
as  if  it  were  put  by  life  itself.  But  there  are 
artists  who  are  unable  to  remain  content  with 
an  art  which  holds  this  strictly  judicial  attitude 
to  their  own  conclusions  ;  their  summing  up  of 
life's  conduct  strongly  moves  them,  one  way  or 
another ;  and  this  also  at  last  demands  artistic 
expression. 

Herein,  it  appears,  lies  the  secret  of  Hardy's 
change  from  fiction  of  dramatic  to  fiction  of 
epic  form.  The  aesthetic  manner  of  those  four 
great  novels,  which  the  last  chapter  considered, 
admirably  enabled  him  to  express  his  intellectual 
conception  of  life,  from  its  outer  show  of  events 
to  the  inmost  primal  discord  of  its  nature,  and 
even  to  the  necessary  tragic  resolution  of  the 
discord.     But  it  withheld  him  from  adding  to 

130 


EPIC   FORM 

his  formation  of  life  the  gloss  of  his  own  opinion 
of  the  tragedy.  That  tragedy  is  not  an  acci- 
dental accompaniment  of  life,  but  essential  to 
its  nature,  this  manner  of  art  can  be  brought, 
without  any  violence,  to  assert ;  but  it  is  very 
difficult  for  it  to  assert  either  that  the  tragedy 
is  a  fine,  heartening  business  or,  on  the  contrary, 
pitiable  and  unjust.  Already,  in  The  Mayor  of 
Casterbridge,  Hardy  appears  somewhat  restive 
under  the  restriction  ;  the  book  seems  several 
times  on  the  verge  of  indignantly  protesting 
against  the  injustice  of  Henchard's  fate — a  fate 
which  gave  his  personality  a  wealth  of  striving, 
aspiring  vigour,  and  then  punished  him  for 
possessing  the  gift.  One  has  the  feeling  that 
the  art  is  here  constantly  hoping  to  be  able  to  do 
something  which  the  artist's  conscience  will  not 
tolerate.  So  a  change  of  aesthetic  habit  becomes 
necessary,  and  Tess  of  the  UUrbervilles  and 
Jude  the  Obscu?~e  are  written  in  a  form  which 
the  artist's  conscience  easily  allows  to  contain 
an  emotional  as  well  as  an  intellectual  judgment 
o£life. 

//The  term  "  epic,"  for  the  form  in  which  these 
two  novels  are  cast,  is  only  meant  as  a  convenient 
label ;  I  shall  not  attempt  meticulously  to  make 
good  its  propriety.  Still,  something  must  be 
said  to  indicate  how  this  form,  whatever  we  call 
it,  enables  fiction  to  go  further  than  presenting 

131 


THOMAS    HARDY 

objective  life  in  co-ordination  with  an  intellectual 
conception  of  its  inmost  manner  of  existence; 
to  add.  in  fact,  the  result,  in  the  author  >  own 
emotions,  of  this  conception.  Instead  of  being 
constructed  round  a  progressive  harmony  of 
several  individual  themes,  the  form  of  these 
two  novels  develops  a  single  theme,  the  Kfe- 
tustory  of  one  person,  and  sends  this  uninter- 
ruptedly  forward.     T 

in  Tem  of  the  LfUrberciHts ;  not  quite  so 
obvious.  T  ;de  the  OSsrmrr,  for  Sue  Bride- 

head  is  a  character  drawn  with  as  exact  and 
penetrating  a  care  as  Jude  himself.  Vet  she 
is  only  the  subject  of  the  book  in  so  far  as 
she  affects  Jude :  with  him  the  story  begins 
and  ends,  and  the  whole  form  of  the  book  is 
moulded  to  his  single  history.  In  both  the 
dramatic  and  the  epic  kinds  of  novel,  the 
separate  events  in  which  the  personal  theme  is 
clothed  yield  a  common  unity  of  general  event, 
by  all  obeying  one  presiding  interest :  so  that  in, 
both  forms  the  events  make  a  continuous  and 
shap  ^cemented  together"  by   m.. 

."*.  ■". ':  ~~ .'  ~"  ~<  "-.  *.:.£  <---ri->  :  Xe  erer.'ts 
that  the  mere  dirTerence  of  intricacy  between 
the  two  forms  becomes  so  important  to  artistic 
capacity.  In  order  to  keep  a  closely  related 
complex,  made  of  several  human  lives,  moving 
uniiormly   through   a   story,  the  events  which 

MB 


EPK     FORM 

carry  it  cannot  merely  march  forward,  on 
evolving  from  another  in  a  straight  line  0 
progress;  they  must  not  only  act  forwards,  hut 

to  each  side  as  well,  and  simultaneously,  it  is 
Dot  a  string,  hut  rather  a  riband  (ft  events,  that 
is  required  ;  there  must  he  a  firm  continuity 
from  end  to  end.  and  also,  and  quite  as  im- 
portantly, there  must  he  firm  weaving  at  < 
stage  acrtM  the  line  of  events,  a  close  texture 
of  breadth  as  well  as  of  length./^  Scarcely 
anything  of  this,  however,  is  required  for  an 
epic  kind  of  novel.  With  only  the  history  of  a 
single  life  to  carry,  there  Deeds  hut  continuity 
of  events  from  end  to  end  ;  the  complex  cross- 
weaving  of  events,  transversely  to  the  main 
onward  line  of  progress,  is  not  wanted,  in  the 
dramatic  novels,  therefore,  with  their  intricate 
linkages  of  events  both  lengthways  and  cross- 
ways,  formal  control  finds  a  pretty  full  employ- 
ment in  keeping  the  mere  matter  of  the  story 
in  order,  and  has  about  as  much  as  it  can  do  to 
relate  the  matter  intellectually  with  the  artistic 
metaphysic  of  the  whole,  leaving  the  emotional 
relation  for  inference.  But  in  the  matter  of  the 
epic  novels,  formal  control  is  freed  from  a  good 
deal  of  this  employment,  and  can  without  much 
risk  take  definitely  within  its  scope  that  which 
dramatic  form  must  let  go  :  with  a  less  intricate 
texture   of   substance,   more   of   the    intangible 

181 


THOMAS   HARDY 

stuff  can  be  woven  in,  and  closely  complicated 
with  it.  The  breadth  of  event,  which  takes  up 
so  much  room  in  dramatic  form,  leaves  room  in 
epic  form  for  a  greater  accompanying  breadth  of 
significance.  For  we  may  image  the  material 
progress  of  the  story  by  likening  it  to  a  pro- 
cession of  ships  down  a  strait ;  if  the  ships  go 
forward  in  a  broad  front,  formed  at  right  angles 
to  the  direction  of  their  sailing,  the  whole  move- 
ment of  the  procession  will  have  covered  most 
of  the  space  of  the  water.  But  if  the  ships  go 
in  a  single  or  a  narrow  line,  there  will  be  a  space 
on  either  side  of  their  path  which  their  move- 
ment has  not  occupied.  Perhaps  this  diagram 
seems  to  make  containing  form  too  much  a 
thing  of  fixt  artifice ;  but  it  is  quite  fair  to 
represent  the  difference  between  the  two  forms 
as  a  question  of  room — room  left  by  the  pro- 
cession of  material  events,  which  may  therefore 
be  filled  by  the  "  sightless  substance."  Alterna- 
tively, however,  we  might  say,  that  the  dramatic 
form  is  like  a  string  quartette,  the  epic  form 
like  a  solo  violin :  it  is  in  the  solo  that  we  most 
easily  hear  the  quality  of  tone  caused  by  over- 
tones. So,  in  the  epic  novels,  a  great  tune  is 
played  on  a  single  human  life ;  and  because 
there  is  only  one  instrument,  we  are  able  to 
hear,  instead  of  the  harmony  of  human  living, 
the    whole    quality    of    the    one    instrument's 

134 


EPIC   FORM 

tone,   all   its   intellectual   and   emotional   over- 
tones. 

It  is  clear,  at  any  rate,  that,  when  we  pass 
from  the  four  novels  discussed  in  the  last  chapter, 
to  the  two  which  we  here  consider,  we  must  soon 
understand  the  change  to  a  simpler,  more  direct 
form  to  be  the  sign  of  a  change  in  the  whole 
condition  of  the  art, — of  a  change  to  a  more 
intricate  intention  with  regard  to  significance. 
The  objective  life  in  these  two  novels  is  shown  as 
a  phenomenon  much  more  closely  and  intensely 
"complicated  with  the  life  beyond" — with  the 
life  of  its  author,  namely — than  in  the  others. 
Humanity  is  still  the  same  restless  affair  of  per- 
sonal desires  asserting  themselves  against  the  vast 
unconcerned  current  of  existence ;  the  tragedy  is 
still  man's  refusal  to  be  held  in  the  process  of 
mere  general  being,  and  his  inability  to  make  his 
refusal  prevail.  But  the  inevitable  agony  is  not 
only  set  forth  in  these  two  books ;  it  is  judged. 
If  man  has  his  intellect,  which  enables  him  so  to 
conceive  the  manner  of  his  existence,  he  also  has 
his  sense  of  justice;  and  it  enables  him,  rather 
compels  him,  to  see  this  existence  of  his  as  a 
harsh  and  senseless  violation  of  his  profoundest 
belief — the  belief  that  his  sense  of  justice  ought 
to  be  satisfied.  Such,  in  brief,  is  the  burden  of 
these  two  books'  significance.  It  is,  of  course, 
not   a  new  significance,  but  only  the  complete 

135 


THOMAS    HARDY 

working  out,  as  far  as  it  can  be  carried,  of  the 
prime  antagonism  between  the  desires  of  person- 
ality and  the  forces  of  its  existence — worked  out 
simultaneously  in  artistic  statement  of  life,  and 
of  the  author's  attitude  to  his  own  statement. 
In  fact,  it  is  a  modern  version  of  the  oldest  and 
most  unshakable  of  all  religious  or  philosophical 
doctrines,  the  doctrine  of  original  sin,  of  the  fatal 
antinomy  between  man's  nature  and  the  divine 
impulse  of  the  world :  for  perception  of  this  is 
the  origin  of  the  doctrine.     Only,  in  this  modern 
version,  the  tragic  punishment  of  the  antinomy 
is  not  made  out  to   be   man's   due   for   wilful 
transgression  of  the  divine  world's  nature.     It  is 
certainly  man's  self-will  that  causes  the  antinomy; 
but  did  man  make  him  self  self-willed? — By  some 
kink  or  eddy  in  the  pouring  forces  of  the  world, 
existence  has  produced  within  it  the  self-willed 
vortex  of  man's  personality;  the  exercise  of  self- 
will  is  the  prime  necessity  of  his  being,  for  with- 
out that  he  is  no  more  man  ;  but,  through  being 
utterly   immersed   in   the    huge   onward  speed 
of  general   existence,   his    self-will,  that  seems 
always    to   promise   the   achievement   of  some 
movement  of  his  own,  is  for  ever  contradicted. 
So  the  only  final  result  of  self-will  for  man,  is 
that  the  unrelenting  motion  of  fate  becomes  a 
tyrannous  agony ;    his  continued  existence  is  a 
tragedy  without  purpose  and  without  end — "  the 

136 


EPIC   FORM 

end  ?  there  is  no  end  :  the  end  is  death  and  mad- 
ness." Hence,  throughout  these  two  books,  the 
atmosphere  is  charged  with  a  fierce  indignation 
against  the  fundamental  injustice  of  man's  ex- 
istence. Tess  is  described,  in  the  title  of  her 
history,  with  challenging  defiance,  as  "a  pure 
woman  faithfully  presented " ;  but  the  protest 
for  which  this  prepares  us,  is  not  uttered  against 
the  stupid  logic  of  society.  That,  to  be  sure, 
is  pilloried;  but  much  more  than  that;  Tess's 
tragedy  is  a  specimen  syllogism  in  the  cruel 
reasoning  of  universal  fate.  Her  tortured  life, 
unnecessarily  sensitive,  is  nothing  but  the 
symbolic  language  wherein  the  premisses  of 
fate  are  quietly  and  ruthlessly  worked  out ;  and 
it  is  the  useless  fact  that  she  is  sensitive — that 
fate,  for  its  rapt  arguing  with  itself,  has  invented 
the  medium  of  human  life,  utterly  careless  that 
it  is  a  medium  exquisitely  tormented  by  the 
processes  of  this  transcendent  reasoning — it  is  this 
useless  fact  which  stirs  Hardy  to  fill  the  record 
of  her  life,  not  with  pathos  or  pity,  but  with 
irreconcilable  indignation  against  the  prime, 
tragic  condition  of  life.  It  is  the  same  with 
Jude :  his  history  of  baffled  aspiration  is  like  an 
argument  fate  holds  with  itself,  intensely  reason- 
ing whether  man's  personal  effort  can  have  any 
final  value  in  the  course  of  its  own  existence, 
calling  Jude's  sensitive  life  into  being  merely  to 

137 


THOMAS    HARDY 

put  the  endless  problem  in  another  instance, 
deciding  the  case  with  regard  only  to  its  own 
logic,  and  for  its  own  dialectic  satisfaction, 
caring  in  no  way  for  the  resulting  passage  of 
agony  through  Jude's  conscious  nerves.  Indeed, 
we  can  hardly  read  these  two  disturbing  books 
without  feeling  that  their  accusing  passion  is  in 
them  not  merely  on  behalf  of  the  lives  they 
imagine ;  they  surely  confess,  under  the  covert 
fiction  of  their  histories,  their  author's  personal 
sense  of  life,  of  its  tragic  compound  of  individual 
desire  and  the  overriding  force  of  general 
existence :  "  hinc  indignatur  se  mortalem  esse 
creatum." 

Both  these  novels,  on  their  first  appearance, 
roused  a  certain  amount  of  public  opposition, 
and  even  resentment.  It  is,  perhaps,  hardly 
worth  while  to  remember  this ;  but  it  seems 
likely  that  the  cause  of  it  was  not  so  much  the 
matter  of  the  two  tragedies  (though  this  was 
ostensibly  attacked),  as  their  passionate  spirit  of 
indignation  with  the  deep  condition  of  life,  their 
fierce  arraignment  of  the  world  which  life  must 
inhabit.  The  mood  called  pessimism  is  common 
enough  in  modern  poetry ;  but  there  it  is  not 
very  troublesome  to  the  general  reading  public. 
Pessimism  in  novels,  however,  is  a  different 
matter ;  and  when  a  great  and  popular  novelist 
like   Thomas    Hardy  seemed  to  devote  all  the 

138 


EPIC   FORM 

resources  of  his  art  to  presenting  a  thoroughly 
pessimistic  view  of  the  world,  the  reading  public 
was  perturbed,  and  protested,  as  though  there 
had  been  some  breach  of  faith.  This  attitude 
can  scarcely  be  dismissed  by  superior  sneering. 
There  is  sound  instinct  in  it ;  but  the  instinct  is 
adulterated  with  stupidity, — the  stupidity  of  a 
nation  which,  at  one  period  the  most  naturally 
artistic  in  Europe,  has  so  debased  itself  with 
industry  that  it  has  lost  most  of  its  imagination, 
and  therewith  the  faculty  of  self-projection, 
without  which  art  may  be  admired,  but  scarcely 
at  all  appreciated.  Still,  objection  to  the  spirit 
in  which  Tess  of  the  Z)'  Urbervilles  and  Jude  the 
Obscure  are  written,  deserves  to  be  in  some  sort 
answered.  The  objection  is  based  on  the  common 
belief— which,  simple  as  it  is,  cannot  easily  be 
controverted — that  art  must  have,  in  one  way  or 
another,  a  utilitarian  value :  it  ought  to  be  of 
some  good  to  us.  So  it  ought ;  but  the  good 
that  art  can  do  is  not  to  be  judged  by  the  good 
that  other  things  can  do.  If  we  do  not  let  a 
work  of  art  entirely  absorb  us,  and  judge  of 
everything  in  it  by  its  relation  to  the  whole ;  if 
we  take  so-and-so  out  of  its  artistic  context,  and 
consider  how  it  would  frame  if  fitted  into  our 
common  wont  of  living :  then  we  are  certainly 
not  judging  art ;  we  are  even,  through  failure  of 
self-projection,  preventing  art  from  doing  us  the 

139 


THOMAS    HARDY 

good  it  might  do.  Allowing  for  a  moment  that 
the  prevailing  mood  of  these  two  novels  is  pessi- 
mistic ;  and  allowing  further  that  pessimism  is  a 
thing  injurious  to  our  common  wont  of  life;  even 
so,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  art  which 
contains  this  mood  may  not  be  wonderfully  good 
for  us.  The  materials  which  an  art  employs  are 
not  the  art  itself.  There  are  those  who  object 
to  stories  and  plays,  if  their  characters  are  bad 
lots  ;  but  it  is  just  as  irrelevant  to  object  to  them 
for  containing  some  emotional  significance  we 
do  not  care  about.  We  must  first  completely 
enter  into  the  art ;  indeed,  we  must  become  the 
art ;  and  then  see  whether  we  care  about  what 
the  questionable  stuff  does  in  the  art.  If  a  work 
of  art  so  uses  its  materials,  whatever  they  be,  as 
to  give  us  some  great  and  severe  experience  for 
imagination ;  then  we  have  no  right  to  ask 
anything  more  of  it. 

The  truth  is,  that  great  art  cannot  ever  be 
itself  pessimistic,  however  much  pessimism  may 
go  to  its  making.  For  the  art  itself  is  not  to 
be  produced  without  a  vital  exultation  in  him 
who  produces  it.  It  is  not  only  "  the  shows  of 
things  submitted  to  the  desires  of  the  mind," 
but  conquered,  transfigured,  completely  sub- 
limated by  the  desires  of  the  mind.  And  the 
artist's  exulting  sense  of  life,  the  mastery  of  his 
formative  imagination  over  the  shows  of  things, 

140 


EPIC   FORM 

and  even  over  the  significance  he  draws  from 
them — this  is  the  first  and  fundamental  thing  we 
feel  in  any  real  appreciation  of  art.  Leopardi 
has  poems  which  terribly  question  the  virtue  of 
being  alive ;  but  even  while  they  are  doing  so, 
life's  achievement,  in  such  noble  art,  of  a  superb 
mastery  over  things,  is  rousing  conscious  life  to 
triumph  in  us.  The  pessimists  themselves,  when 
they  are  honest  with  themselves,  admit  this 
paradox.  "  The  City  of  Dreadful  Night  "  is  the 
declaration  of  one  to  whom  life  was  profoundly 
evil.  But  why  should  the  declaration  be  made 
at  all  ?     Thomson  himself  gives  the  reason  : 

"  Because  it  gives  some  sense  of  power  and  passion 
In  helpless  impotence  to  try  to  fashion 

Our  woe  in  living  words  howe'er  uncouth." 

"  Some  sense  of  power  and  passion  in  helpless 
impotence " ;  yes,  but  the  sense  is  the  thing 
here.  In  the  art,  the  sense  of  power  and  passion 
is  power  and  passion.  Even  over  woe  and 
helpless  impotence,  formative  imagination,  the 
central  vigour  of  man's  nature,  has  won  to 
mastery ;  it  has  fashioned  it  in  strong  and 
shapely  art.  And  for  him  who  receives  the  art, 
no  less  than  for  him  who  makes  it,  the  deepest 
and  most  unquestionable  result  in  work  of  large 
and  prevailing  formality,  is  the  sense  of  com- 
mand and  power   in   life ;  a   thing  sufficiently 

141 


THOMAS   HARDY 

removed  from  pessimism,  however  pessimistic 
the  materials  used  may  seem.  Man's  profound 
desire  for  order,  system,  linked  significance,  in 
his  rough  experience  of  the  world,  is  completely 
satisfied  in  the  firm  shaping  of  art ;  immersed  in 
it,  he  feels  his  will  penetrating  the  world  ;  and 
conscious  mastery  is  added  to  his  nature.  And 
it  often  happens,  that  the  more  the  art  is 
removed  from  comfortable  things,  the  more 
invigorated  and  severely  delighted  will  the  sense 
of  mastery  be  :  even  a  dread  of  existence,  man 
can  command,  and  put  forth  mastered  into 
form.  So  it  is  with  these  two  great  novels  of 
Thomas  Hardy's.  We  may  call  their  mood 
pessimistic,  but  they  themselves  are  nothing  so  ; 
for  their  art  is  altogether  too  shapely,  too  assured, 
too  masterful.  Yet  the  mood  sometimes  escapes 
from  the  art ;  in  several  passages  it  cries  out 
uncontrolled ;  the  final  paragraph  in  Tess  of 
the  UUrbervilles  is  a  notable  instance.  And 
whether  the  mood  be  a  thing  we  like  or  not, 
these  passages  are  offensive ;  but  simply  because 
the  form  has  given  way,  the  art  for  a  moment 
has  lost  its  mastery. 

Is  it  so  certain,  however,  that  even  the  mood 
of  these  two  novels  is  pessimistic  ?  I  cannot 
understand  it  to  be  really  so.  A  genuine  pes- 
simism must  surely  go  further  than  the  con- 
ception of  existence  as  an  evil ;  it  must  add  to  this 

142 


EPIC   FORM 

a  sad  acquiescence  in  the  evil, — since  what  good 
can  come  of  anything  else  than  acquiescence,  if 
all  things  end  in  evil  ?  But  the  mood  which 
governs  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervillcs  and  Jude  the 
Obscure  is  plainly  not  an  acquiescence.  It  is 
a  fierce,  burning  revolt  against  the  evil  it  con- 
ceives. To  accuse,  and  passionately  to  accuse, 
the  measureless  injustice  of  man's  state  in  the 
world,  is  certainly  to  confess  tacitly  that  it  is 
worth  while  having  a  sense  of  justice  ;  nay,  that 
it  is  good  to  exercise  one's  sense  of  justice.  And 
without  doubt  it  is  good — good  for  life,  and  for 
the  consciousness  of  life.  For  even  while  exist- 
ence is  being  arraigned  as  an  unjust  evil,  the 
sense  of  justice  is  thereby  impassioned  to  a  flame 
of  activity,  profoundly  enjoying  itself  and  its 
own  warmth,  and  sending  the  glow  of  its  in- 
dignation through  the  whole  consciousness  that 
contains  it.  And  so  long  as  this  is  possible,  so 
long  as  a  conception  of  the  world  can  do  good 
to  the  sense  of  life,  though  it  be  only  in  this 
somewhat  perverted  fashion,  I  do  not  see  that 
there  can  be  genuine  pessimism.  But  it  must 
be  admitted,  and  it  already  has  been  admitted,1 
that  in  these  later  novels  of  Hardy's  there  are 
some  moments  of  unmistakable  pessimism,  when 
even  the  sense  of  justice  coldly  and  dully  con- 
fesses that  it  is  not  worth  while  to  be  outraged 

1   See  page  29. 
143 


THOMAS   HARDY 

by  the  world  it  contemplates.  Fortunately, 
these  moments  are  few.  But  after  all,  the  main 
thing  is,  that  this  mood  of  indignation  against 
the  tragic  manner  of  human  existence  should  be 
perfectly  wrought  into  the  form  of  the  art ; 
should  not  be  allowed  naked  or  unmanaged 
outcry,  but  should  be  conveyed  by  the  whole 
nature  of  the  art  in  which  it  is  expressed.  And 
on  the  whole,  this  is  what  happens. 

"  Poor  wounded  name  !  "  quotes  the  title-page 
of  Tess  of  the  Z)'  Urbervllles,  "  my  bosom  as  a 
bed  shall  lodge  thee."  Indeed,  there  are  few 
books  written  with  such  intensity  of  personal 
feeling.  The  book  has  been  accused  of  defend- 
ing a  thesis  ;  but  criticism  could  not  be  more 
inept.  Neither  does  it  defend  Tess  ;  for  what 
is  there  in  that  lovely  nature  that  needs  defence  ? 
To  defend  the  characters  whom  he  creates  is  not 
a  dignified  attitude  for  a  novelist  to  assume  ;  and 
Hardy's  fiction  is  always  dignified.  The  person 
in  this  story  who  stands  most  in  need  of  defence, 
is  Angel  Clare  ;  and,  fortunately  for  the  art  of 
the  book,  he  does  not  get  it.  But  what  the 
story  does  for  Tess,  is  to  accept  her  with  all  the 
perfect  sympathy  and  understanding  of  love. 
A  charity  that  is  infinitely  larger  than  forgive- 
ness accompanies  her,  loving  her  weakness  as 
well  as  her  strength,  exquisitely  understanding 
how  her  beautiful  nature   is   forced    by  agony 

144 


EPIC   FORM 

into  crime.  It  is  decidedly  uncommon  in  a 
work  of  art,  such  intense  and  personal  regard 
on  the  part  of  the  author  for  his  own  creation ; 
and  it  is  likely  that  this  is  what  upset,  and 
perhaps  still  upsets,  the  critical  balance  of  some 
readers.  But  this  noticeable  dualism  in  Tess  of 
the  jyUrberoilles  is  exceedingly  important  for 
the  conveying  of  the  epic  motive  of  the  whole 
book — the  dualism  of  a  merciless,  unhesitating 
tragic  imagination,  and  an  impotent  fervour  of 
charity  for  its  central  figure  ;  charity  that  seems 
always  desiring  to  protect  this  figure  from  the 
steady,  injurious  process  of  the  imagination 
which  conceived  her,  yet  can  do  nothing  but 
painfully  watch  her  destruction.  For  so  the 
whole  content  of  the  book's  form,  from  the  first 
materials  of  its  story  to  the  limits  of  their  sur- 
rounding emotional  significance,  is  pervaded  by 
the  conflict  of  two  forces — "  the  inherent  will  to 
enjoy,  and  the  circumstantial  will  against  enjoy- 
ment." This  conflict  throughout  the  story,  and 
through  all  its  intellectual  and  emotional  accom- 
paniments, is  graspt  by  a  great  epic  unity  of 
form.  It  is  worked  out  in  the  simplest  and 
barest  manner,  but  in  a  spacious  design,  and 
with  terrible  earnestness.  The  story  is  not  one 
of  any  complex  human  action  ;  it  does  not  deal 
with  any  daring  aspiration,  hardly  with  any 
notable  motive.  Tess's  "will  to  enjoy"  is 
K  145 


THOMAS   HARDY 

nothing  extravagant ;  there  is  no  hardihood  in 
it,  which  the  relentless  assimilating  forces  of 
worldly  destiny  might  seize  on  and  punish  for 
its  boldness.  She  merely  hopes,  modestly  and 
humbly,  for  the  happiness  in  life  which  her 
instincts  seem  to  promise  her ;  and  it  is  for  those 
instincts,  implanted  in  her,  that  she  is  destroyed 
by  anguish  and  crime.  Thus  the  tragic  idea  of 
the  world,  which  underlies  all  Hardy's  work, 
finds  in  this  book  its  simplest,  and  therefore  its 
most  terrible  statement.  Without  any  exciting 
turns  or  ingenious  devices  of  narrative,  Tess's 
history  goes  greatly  and  quietly  forward,  with 
a  motion  that  mesmerizes  by  its  deliberate  un- 
ceasing pace  ;  and  it  is  the  history  of  personality 
compelled,  by  its  very  nature,  to  utter  its  own 
desires  against  the  immense  unperturbed  current 
of  general  existence,  that  takes  no  alteration  from 
the  personalities  it  sweeps  forward.  Scarcely 
anything  in  the  story  competes  for  the  reader's 
interest  with  the  austere  driving-forward  of  the 
main  epic  theme.  The  characterization  is  just 
sufficiently  elaborated  to  be  real  and  substantial, 
and  to  give  the  theme  definiteness  and  human 
particularity.  There  are  no  curious  subtleties, 
nor  searching  into  the  secrets,  of  psychology. 
Tess  herself  would  not  make  such  a  draft  upon 
our  affections,  were  it  not  for  her  tragic  destiny : 
it  is  not  so  much  for  her  character,  as  for  the 

146 


EPIC   FORM 

fact  that  such  a  character  should  be  so  cruelly 
entreated,  that  we  love  her  ;  though  certainly 
there  are  few  women  in  fiction,  or  for  that 
matter  in  drama,  of  such  beautifully  lucid 
nature.  Her  parents  are  both  admirably  drawn ; 
the  sottish  father,  unable,  without  help  from 
alcohol,  to  bear  the  weight  of  his  family's  an- 
tique greatness,  and  the  genial,  stupid,  feckless 
mother,  are  as  real  as  may  be,  and  the  story 
takes  some  splendid  comedy  from  them,  though 
the  humour  of  it  comes  in  rather  sadly.  But 
they  are  only  characterized  just  as  much  as  the 
great  theme  requires  ;  they  are  strictly  a  part 
of  its  formal  apparatus,  and,  you  might  say, 
know  their  place  in  the  story,  never  intruding 
too  much  on  the  reader's  attention.  So  also  is 
it  with  the  group  of  Tess's  girl-companions  at 
Talbothays ;  exquisitely  real  figures,  these,  but 
if  one  examines  one's  knowledge  of  them,  it  is 
plain  that  their  natures  are  only  just  known 
enough  to  be  distinct  personalities.  The  only 
psychological  surprise  in  the  book  is  Alec 
D'Urberville's  conversion  from  a  lecher  to  a 
ranter.  It  is  a  fine  stroke,  but  not  a  subtle 
one ;  a  piece  of  broad  rather  than  of  searching 
psychology.  His  is  not  a  nature  capable  of  any 
profound  development,  and  he  would  be  less 
suited  to  the  story  if  he  were.  His  first  sight 
of  Tess  after  he  has  begun  his  preaching  shows 

147 


THOMAS   HARDY 

that  he  has  but  found  a  razor-edge  footing  on 
the  heights  of  religion.  After  his  question : 
"  But  since  you  wear  a  veil  to  hide  your  good 
looks,  why  don't  you  keep  it  down  ? " — we  know 
well  enough  that  his  feet  are  slipping  already ; 
he  will  soon  fall  down,  plump  into  the  mire 
where  he  belongs.  Yet  he  is  as  near  to  agony 
as  such  gross  stuff  can  come,  and  has  almost 
the  touch  of  tragedy  on  him,  when  he  cries  out, 
"  There  never  were  such  eyes,  surely,  before 
Christianity  or  since."  Withal,  he  is  a  common 
enough  sort  of  creature  ;  but  a  common  thing 
wrought  with  masterly  art. 

Angel  Clare  is  the  one  figure  in  the  book  who 
is  at  all  out  of  the  ordinary  run  of  human  nature. 
His  squeamish,  fastidious  nature,  conscious  of 
his  own  purity  and  unconscious  of  his  deep 
insincerity,  mixing  with  farm-hands  as  an  equal 
and  always  feeling  his  own  superiority,  pre- 
tentiously broad-minded  and  essentially  mean, 
is  analysed  with  considerable  care.  He  is  not  so 
pushed  forward  as  to  be  too  noticeable,  however ; 
though  he  is  undoubtedly  real  enough  to  be 
odious.  In  fact,  he  is  the  only  one  of  Hardy's 
characters  who  is  genuinely  odious.  Even  if 
one  knew  all  about  Alec  D'Urberville,  one 
could  bear  to  have  dinner  with  him ;  yes,  and 
even  those  starched  ninnyhammers,  Angel's 
two    parsonical    brothers,   might   be    agreeably 

148 


EPIC   FORM 

talked  to  at  a  garden-party.  But  no  decent 
person,  knowing  Angel's  history,  would  house 
with  him  or,  if  possible,  talk  with  him.  For  he 
is  theoretical  high-mindedness ;  and  than  this 
there  is  nothing  more  disgusting,  let  alone  its 
cruelty  when  it  gets  any  actual  life  into  its 
power.  He,  and  not  her  seducer,  is  the  real 
poison  in  Tess's  life.  Whether,  when  the  story 
ends,  he  is  to  marry  'Liza-Lu,  is  not  quite  clear ; 
Hardy  seems  to  have  shrunk  from  definitely 
adding  to  the  sorrow  of  the  book's  close  a  piece 
of  tragic  irony  similar  to  the  comic  irony  with 
which  the  "  Alchemist "  ends.  But  I  am  sure 
he  does  marry  her,  and  generously  trains  her 
to  his  standards ;  I  am  sure,  at  any  rate,  that 
the  rest  of  his  life  is  not  much  tormented  with 
the  pangs  of  self-contempt.  Yet  Angel  Clare 
is  profoundly  necessary  to  the  whole  art  of 
the  book.  If,  for  the  sake  of  a  moment's 
convenience,  we  allow  ourselves  roughly  to 
allegorize  the  story,  then  Tess  will  be  the  in- 
most purity  of  human  life,  the  longing  for 
purity  which  has  its  intensest  instinct  in  vir- 
ginity ;  and  Alec  D'Urberville  is  "  the  measure- 
less grossness  and  the  slag"  which  inevitably 
takes  hold  of  life,  however  virginal  its  desires. 
This  is  bad  enough  ;  it  is  a  type  of  the  funda- 
mental tragedy  of  life.  But  the  tragedy  could 
be  endured.     It  is  Angel  Clare  who  turns  it  to 

149 


THOMAS   HARDY 

unendurable  agony  ;  for  he  is  the  venom  not  so 
much  of  self-consciousness  as  of  introspection, 
horribly  exaggerating  the  tragedy,  adding  that 
dreadful  element,  the  idea  of  remorse,  taking 
enforced  impurity  as  a  personal  sin,  cruelly 
blaming  life  for  that  the  helpless  fact  of  its 
existence  does  not  equal  its  desires.  And  intro- 
spection is  a  no  less  essential  part  of  the  whole 
human  tragedy,  as  this  book  has  to  declare  it, 
than  anything  else  therein. 

But  we  must  only  play  with  this  sort  of  alle- 
gorizing fantasy  when  we  are  considering  a  book 
of  such  human  reality  as  this.  We  can  extract, 
perhaps,  a  good  deal  of  its  significance,  and 
analyse  its  narrative  substance  ;  but  it  is  the 
epic  unity  of  the  book  that  is  its  greatest  and 
noblest  quality.  No  more  than  the  intellectual 
and  human  elements  in  it,  do  the  successive 
incidents  blur  with  too  much  forwardness  the 
severe  gradual  shaping  of  the  whole  ;  not  even 
when  they  are  so  poignant  as  Tess's  christening 
of  her  baby,  or  so  charming  as  Clare  carrying 
the  dairymaids  across  the  flooded  stream.  The 
scenery  of  the  story  is  equally  obedient  to  its 
whole  emotional  process.  The  descriptions  are 
done  with  extraordinarily  minute  intensity  ;  but 
their  innumerable  detail  is  fused  by  a  continuous 
and  large  design,  so  that  a  multitude  of  small 
strokes    builds    up   a    spacious   background   of 

150 


EPIC   FORM 

living  earth  for  the  human  events.  Except  for 
The  Return  of  the  Native,  no  other  novel  of 
Hardy's  has  its  action  placed  so  grandly,  and 
with  such  perfect  propriety.  And  whereas  the 
dramatic  stories  have  in  the  main  a  fixt  and 
unaltering  background,  here,  as  seems  proper 
to  the  epic  movement,  the  setting  alters  with  the 
progressive  emotion  of  the  story,  turning  bleaker 
and  harsher  as  the  tragic  stress  deepens.  It  is 
with  a  more  than  logical  propriety,  that  the 
scenery  of  Tess's  life  changes  from  the  prodigal 
beauty  of  the  Vales  of  Blackmoor  and  Froom, 
to  the  grim  upland  winter  of  Flintcomb  Ash, 
with  its  hard  soil  immensely  exposed  to  scathing 
rain  and  windy  snow ;  and  that  her  occupation 
correspondingly  changes  from  idyllic  dairying 
under  the  humorous  Crick  (with  his  delightful 
stories  of  William  Dewey  fiddling  to  the  bull 
and  Jack  Dollop  hiding  in  the  churn),  to  aching 
toil  among  the  swedes,  at  reed-drawing,  and  on 
the  threshing  machine,  under  the  eye  of  a  vindic- 
tive curmudgeon.  And  perhaps  it  is  not  unduly 
forcing  the  epithet  to  claim  an  epic  quality  for 
much  of  the  dialogue — for  its  simplicity  and 
directness,  for  the  way  it  conveys  the  circum- 
stance of  the  story  in  the  habit  of  its  imagery, 
and  especially  for  the  way  the  brooding  motive 
of  the  whole  business  speaks  through  the  various 
characters ;  in,  for  instance,  such  a  speech  as  this : 

151 


THOMAS   HARDY 

"  Her  mind  can  no  more  be  heaved  from  that  one  place 
where  it  do  bide  than  a  stooded  waggon  from  the  hole 
he's  in.  Lord  love  'ee,  neither  court-paying,  nor  preaching, 
nor  the  seven  thunders  themselves,  can  wean  a  woman 
when  'twould  be  better  for  her  that  she  should  be 
weaned." 

From  first  to  last,  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles  is 
one  relentless  onward  movement.  The  human 
narrative,  the  surrounding  nature,  the  accompani- 
ment of  intellectual  and  emotional  significance, 
all  weave  inextricably  together,  and  go  forward 
dominated  by  a  unity  of  purpose ;  they  unite 
in  a  single  epic  statement,  formidable  in  its  bare 
simplicity,  of  the  conflict  between  personal  and 
impersonal — the  conflict  which  is  the  inmost 
vitality  of  all  Hardy's  noblest  work. 

If  we  may  regard  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles  as 
an  epic  statement  of  this  conflict  in  its  simplest 
and  most  general  mode,  Jude  the  Obscure  may 
be  said  to  put,  in  a  very  similar  form  of  art,  a 
special  case  of  the  conflict ;  but  a  special  case  of 
striking  and  unavoidable  kind.  The  mere  "  will 
to  enjoy  " — the  fundamental  motive  of  personal 
existence — becomes  the  more  complex  and  more 
dangerous  "  will  to  power  "  :  the  familiar  phrases 
come  pat  for  summarizing  the  difference  between 
the  two  books.  With  Hardy's  continual  meta- 
physic  in  our  minds,  we  may  say  that,  while 
Tess  only  suffers  her  tragedy,  Jude  deliberately 

152 


EPIC   FORM 

courts  his.  She  is  punished  simply  for  the  sin 
of  personal  existence ;  but  Jude,  with  the  more 
rebellious  consciousness  of  masculine  nature, 
adds  to  this  the  further  sin  of  aspiration — he 
being  thus  typical  of  his  sex,  as  Tess  is  of  hers. 
For  the  first  requirement  of  feminine  nature 
seems  to  be,  on  the  whole,  the  maintenance  of 
personal  integrity  (this  desire  typifying  itself  in 
purity,  chastity,  virginity) ;  masculine  nature, 
however,  strives  to  increase  the  range  and  power 
of  personality,  to  meet  circumstance  by  offence 
as  well  as  defence  ;  but  is  liable  thereby,  through 
excess,  to  weaken  personality,  to  become  un- 
chaste, to  take  some  mixture  of  the  brute  world 
it  attacks  :  Jude  himself  is  an  instance.  Thus 
it  is  profoundly  right  that  the  more  general 
tragedy,  the  tragic  situation  of  which  all  others 
are  specializations — the  failure  passively  to  main- 
tain the  integrity  of  personal  existence  against 
the  main  force  of  the  world — should  be  a 
woman's  tragedy  ;  but  that  the  life  of  a  man 
should  figure  the  special  case  of  this  essential 
tragedy — the  courageous  futility  not  simply  of 
resistance,  but  of  aspiration,  of  the  desire  to 
make  circumstance  give  way  to,  as  well  as  allow, 
personal  being.  It  cannot  be  said  that  Tess's 
opposition  to  the  power  of  the  world  is  less 
brave  or  less  vigorous  than  Jude's  ;  but  it  is 
static ;  her  prime  desire  is  to  be  allowed  to  exist 

153 


THOMAS   HARDY 

in  her  own  pure  nature.  And  as  soon  as  she 
clearly  perceives  that  the  world  has  finally  got 
the  better  of  her,  that  her  nature  has  been  in- 
vaded by  some  influence  of  the  worldly  enmity 
which,  unlike  her  first  contamination,  is  not  to 
be  dislodged,  which,  indeed,  turns  her  nature 
into  something  no  longer  her  own :  as  soon  as 
she  is  assured  of  this,  she  takes  such  vengeance 
on  the  world  as  will  make  her  own  destruction 
inevitable.  Rather  than  to  be  on  such  terms, 
she  prefers  not  to  be  at  all.  It  is  not  thus  with 
Jude.  He  has  the  bodily  chastity  of  any  ordi- 
narily clean-minded  man ;  but  he  has  nothing 
of  that  intense  spiritual  chastity  which  makes 
a  tragic  matter  of  Tess's  violation  by  the  world. 
Jude  will  endure  worldly  contamination  that 
Tess  could  never  tolerate ;  so  long  as  there  is 
still  some  force  uncrippled  in  him,  able  to  keep 
up  his  assault  on  circumstance,  he  will  go  on, 
contaminate  or  not.  It  is  only  when  he  is  no 
longer  able  to  attack  the  world  that  he  willingly 
dies.  And  without  absurdly  forcing  sexual  dif- 
ference, it  seems  justifiable  to  take  these  two 
novels  as  giving  a  typically  feminine  and  a 
typically  masculine  embodiment  to  the  same 
tragic  conflict  of  personal  against  impersonal. 

The  form  which  this  conflict  takes  in  Jude's 
history  is  beyond  question  a  thoroughly  epic 
conception.     There  is  a  certain  simple  grandeur, 

154 


EPIC   FORM 

as  well  as  deep  human  and  symbolic  reality,  in 
this  assault  of  a  single  working-man  on  the  high 
privileged  towers  of  scholarship  ;  for  even  when 
Jude  turns  his  aspirations  to  religion,  it  is  still 
scholarship  he  desires ;  he  would  be,  somehow 
or  other,  a  clerk  in  the  old  meaning.  But, 
simple  as  this  central  theme  is,  and  wide  as  its 
symbolic  significance  appears  (a  modern  legend 
of  man's  unending  hunger  for  knowledge),  it  is 
yet  in  itself  more  complex,  and  less  general  in 
its  significance,  than  the  theme  of  Tess  of  the 
jyjJrbervilles ;  since  it  is  aspiration  instead  of 
mere  resistance.  And  with  this  there  goes 
noticeably  a  greater  complexity  in  the  narrative 
substance  which  this  theme  possesses.  It  is  not 
that  the  substance  is  here  compounded  out  of  a 
larger  number  of  elements  ;  on  the  contrary,  the 
excellent,  though  somewhat  subdued,  comedy, 
and  the  splendid  natural  setting,  of  Tess  of  the 
D'Urbervilles,  have  scarcely  any  counterparts  in 
Jude  the  Obscure.  It  is  a  book  whose  tone  is 
as  nearly  uniform,  from  start  to  finish,  as  may 
be.  But  compensation  for  this  comes  from  the 
remarkable  elaboration  in  the  psychology  ;  the 
relations  between  the  chief  characters  are  of 
the  subtlest  kind,  and  described  with  keen  and 
penetrating  nicety ;  and  out  of  this  intricate 
relationship  proceeds  naturally  a  subsidiary 
second  theme — a  war  between  love   and   mar- 

155 


THOMAS   HARDY 

riage — which  is  intimately  woven  in  with  the 
first.  Jude  himself  is  a  transparent  character, 
but  by  no  means  a  simple  one ;  though  he  has 
the  apparent  simplicity  which  comes  from  a 
single  over-ruling  passion,  flowing  through  him 
like  a  strong  electric  current  and  infecting  all 
the  metal  in  him  with  one  pervading  magnetism. 
The  whole  of  his  nature  is  fascinated  into  a 
single  desire ;  and  his  imagination  lives  always 
in  its  accomplishment,  never  in  the  difficulties 
before  him,  or  in  the  embarrassment  such  a  desire 
must  cause  to  a  life  like  his.  Thus  his  desire 
inflames  his  imagination,  and  that  again  still 
more  inflames  his  desire.  When  he  sees,  from 
a  hopeless  distance,  the  vague  light  which  marks 
where  Christminster,  the  city  of  learning,  lies 
under  the  night,  his  imagination  instantly  con- 
jures up  the  vision  of  Phillotson  inhabiting  the 
glowing  town,  "  promenading  at  ease,  like  one 
of  the  forms  in  Nebuchadnezzar's  furnace  "  ;  and 
at  once  despair  becomes  impossible  for  him,  the 
desire  is  fiercely  alight  again.  Through  living  in 
this  continual  aspiration,  his  nature  seems  to 
have  no  cross-weaving  in  its  texture ;  all  the 
fibres  of  his  being  seem  laid  to  one  direction. 
But  this  simple  regularity  is  only  his  surface. 
When  aspiration  fails,  a  terrible  perversity  takes 
its  place,  which  causes  him  deliberately  to  debase 
himself.     If  he  is  not  worthy  to  subdue  his  fate, 

156 


EPIC   FORM 

he  will  see  to  it  that  he  is  as  unworthy  as  a  man 
may  be.  This  is  fine  psychology  ;  such  perverse 
consolation  for  failure  is  the  only  possible  con- 
solation for  him.  At  least  it  would  make  his 
life  not  a  mere  negation,  but  a  positive  thing, 
a  life  that  never  could  have  succeeded  ;  and  so 
regret  may  be  stifled.  And  of  a  piece  with 
these  transient  but  destructive  moods,  is  his 
fruitless  determination,  after  repenting  of  his 
frenzy,  to  mortify  his  intellectual  desires  by 
dedicating  himself  to  a  life  of  humble  hidden 
Christian  effort.  And  when  he  hopes  to  find 
in  Sue  Bridehead  "  a  companion  in  Anglican 
worship,"  it  is  but  a  commandment  given  by 
his  concealed  nature,  ironically  speaking  in  the 
language  familiar  to  his  ruling  desire,  the  only 
language  his  consciousness  willingly  listens  to. 

The  device  which  the  power  of  the  world  uses 
to  oppose,  or  rather  to  ambush  and  capture,  the 
assaults  on  circumstance  of  Jude's  aspiration,  is 
that  terribly  obvious  one,  the  flesh.  The  world 
need  put  no  subtle  stratagems  in  train  against 
such  an  attack  as  Jude's :  it  has  but  to  remain 
unperturbed,  and  Jude  will  work  out  his  own 
damnation.  For  this  aspiring  nature  of  his  is 
lodged  in  worldly  substance ;  and  thus,  for  all  his 
desperate  efforts  to  belong  wholly  to  his  own 
desires,  secretly  and  profoundly  he  belongs  to  the 
world.     Striving  to  effect  his  own  motion,  he  is 

157 


THOMAS    HARDY 

yet  not  only  immersed  in,  but  is  himself  an 
inseparable  part  of,  the  great  onward  motion  of 
whole  existence ;  and  it  is  only  the  fierce 
unavailing  imperative  of  his  own  desires  that 
makes  enforced  obedience  to  the  general  flux  of 
things  an  evil  for  him.  To  earn  a  living,  mate 
with  a  woman,  and  get  children — these  are  the 
things  which  form  the  natural  scope  of  his  being ; 
and  these  are  what  the  substance  of  his  being 
compels  him  to  do,  like  it  or  not.  But  through 
his  aspiration  to  live  outside  this  natural  scope, 
these  harmless  things,  holding  him  back,  become 
his  fearful  evil.  As  you  please,  you  may  either 
say  that  his  aspiration  sins  against  nature,  or  that 
nature  sins  against  his  aspiration ;  but,  one  way 
or  the  other,  there  is  sin  inevitably,  and  punish- 
ment of  sin : 

"  The  common  food  he  doth 
Sustain  his  soul-tormenting  thoughts  withal, 

Is  honey  in  his  mouth 
To-night,  and  his  heart,  to-morrow,  gall." 

Jude  is  by  no  means  one  of  those  many-tempted 
souls  who  cry  out  desperately,  "  Before  a  pack  of 
deep-mouth 'd  lusts  I  flee."  It  is  simple  nature 
that  pursues  him  ;  and  the  story  has  to  work  out 
how  the  common  nature  of  his  being  overtakes 
and  treads  down  his  aspiration — how  two  women, 
and  the  love  they  are  ready  to  give  him,  become, 
through   his   insatiable   need   to   strive   against 

158 


EPIC   FORM 

circumstance,  the  sins  for  which  he  must  be 
punished.  In  these  two  women,  and  their 
relationship  with  the  finer  faculties  of  Jude's 
mind,  the  real  tragedy  is  placed ;  and  they  are 
drawn  with  as  minute  and  scrupulous  accuracy, 
and  hold  as  important  a  position  in  the  main 
theme,  as  Jude  himself.  The  book  therefore  has 
a  decidedly  richer  humanity  than  Tess  of  the 
D' Urbervilles  ;  and  for  this  very  reason  it  has 
also  perhaps  a  less  tremendous  mastery  over  the 
reader's  emotions  than  that  bare  tragedy ;  for 
tragedy  is  somewhat  mitigated,  when  attention 
is  curiously  employed  with  psychology.  More- 
over, aspiration  is  a  thing  more  obviously 
punishable  than  mere  desire  for  personal  integrity, 
which  was  Tess's  chief  fault ;  and  the  catastrophe 
therefore  falls  less  heavily.  But  the  two  books 
are  entirely  alike  in  the  ruthless  forward  driving 
of  their  theme,  and  their  superb  shapeliness  of 
unity ;  and  it  is  only  for  personal  preference  to 
choose  between  them,  if  any  choosing  be 
required. 

The  story  of  Jude's  relations  with  his  wife 
Arabella  and  his  cousin  Sue  Bridehead  develops 
into  a  secondary  conflict  in  which  marriage 
minus  love  is  opposed  to  what  theologians  call 
"  unhallowed  union  "plus  love  ;  and  this  is  mixed 
with  a  satirical  discussion,  thinly  veiled  in 
narrative,  of  the  notion  that  an  external  ceremony 

159 


THOMAS   HARDY 

can  ratify  love.  Both  Jude  and  Sue,  with 
their  repeated  half-humorous,  wholly  reluctant, 
attempts  to  get  themselves  married,  become 
indeed  instances  of  the  exact  opposite  notion ; 
that  love,  namely,  is  safer  without  a  contract  of 
perpetual  obligation.  All  this  subsidiary  matter 
is  worked  up  with  such  elaborate  care,  that 
there  are  moments  when  the  book  seems  in 
danger  of  becoming  a  problem-novel.  But 
reassurance  soon  follows;  and  those  frivolous 
theorists,  who  hold  that  art  should  be  a  place  for 
debating  social  institutions,  must  be  as  little 
satisfied  with  Jude  the  Obscure  as  with  the  rest 
of  Hardy's  work.  For  this  troublesome  question 
of  love  and  marriage  comes  in  as  inevitable 
incident  of  the  main  story,  a  necessary  con- 
sequence, not  otherwise  important,  of  the 
psychological  premisses.  The  whole  point  of 
the  business  is,  that  Jude's  marriage  with 
Arabella  and  his  illegal  love  for  Sue  were  equally 
ruinous  to  the  achievement  of  his  desire.  His 
disaster  is,  that  he  has  anything  to  do  with 
women  at  all ;  for  the  fashion  of  his  nature  is 
such,  that  no  woman  can  be  to  him  anything  but 
a  representative  of  that  great  assimilating  power 
of  the  general  world  which  is  his  spirit's  enemy — 
since  it  is  all  for  holding  him  back  from  realizing 
himself.  Either  of  these  two  women  would  have 
been  an  efficient  agent  of  this ;  with  the  pair  of 

160 


EPIC   FORM 

them,  Jude  is  simply  devoured.  But  they  as 
deeply  contrast,  the  one  with  the  other,  in  spite 
of  their  kinship  in  Jude's  destruction,  as  any 
other  opposed  pair  of  women  in  Hardy's  novels. 
Their  manner  of  contrast,  too,  is  of  the  kind  he 
usually  describes ;  but  employed  here  in  a  com- 
pletely new  fashion — merely  to  show,  you  might 
almost  say,  that  any  kind  of  woman  would  be 
the  ruin  of  Jude.  Arabella  is  plainly  the  simple- 
natured,  instinctive  woman  ;  in  a  rough  classifi- 
cation, she  would  go  with  Marty  South ;  but 
only  in  so  far  as  she  is  contrasted  with  delicate, 
fastidious,  clever,  capricious  Sue  Bridehead.  For 
in  Arabella,  the  feminine  instinct  is  sheer  un- 
questioning destructiveness — at  least,  so  it 
becomes  by  reason  of  Jude's  nature.  The  only 
thing  that  concerns  her  is  to  get  possession  of  a 
man,  and  to  be  possessed  by  him ;  and  when 
Jude  is  the  man,  this  means  simply  that  his 
striving  personality  is  fallen  helpless  into  the 
mercilesss  rapture  of  main,  impersonal  existence. 
Unquestionably,  as  a  type  of  the  women  rudely 
called  "man-eaters,"  Arabella  is  a  masterpiece. 
Whether  she  is  a  wanton  girl,  or  Jude's  wife,  or 
the  publican's  wife,  or  a  "  volupshious  widow  " 
weeping  with  anxiety  to  get  Jude  back  again, 
this  stupid,  not  unkindly,  clumsily  unscrupulous 
woman  seems  a  creature  charged  with  sinister 
and  incalculable  potency.  And  so  she  is ;  she 
l  161 


THOMAS   HARDY 

merely  transmits,  and  she  has  not  enough 
personality  to  disguise,  the  power  of  the  world 
against  which  Jude  has  pitted  his  spirit.  I  know 
no  character  in  fiction  who  has  a  trait  of  such 
grim  significance  as  Arabella's  trick  of  sucking 
in  her  cheeks  so  as  to  give  herself  engaging 
dimples. 

Arabella  as  a  representative,  as  far  as  Jude 
and  his  aspiration  are  concerned,  of  woman  as  sin, 
is  clear  enough.  Sue  Bridehead  becomes  this 
only  as  a  result  of  the  most  intricate  psycho- 
logical subtlety.  At  first  she  seems  just  the 
one  woman  who  might  "  save  "  Jude — save  him 
in  the  Wagnerian  sense.  She  is  as  clever  as 
Jude  is,  and,  though  clear-sighted  enough  to  be 
sometimes  tenderly  amused  at  his  unceasing 
dream,  sceptical  of  the  value  of  scholarship, 
and  still  more  so  of  theology,  she  yet  entirely 
sympathizes  with  his  unfaltering  desire.  And 
she  is  amazingly  lovable.  None  of  Hardy's 
most  charming  women,  not  even  Marty  South 
or  Bathsheba  Everdene,  can  compare  with  Sue, 
for  the  strange  and  elusive  delicacy  of  her  charm. 
But  she  cannot  escape  her  sex.  The  Christian 
ideal  of  purity,  to  be  gained  by  the  denial  of 
life,  disgusts  her  ;  she  is  for  the  pagan  ideal,  the 
simple  unquestioning  acceptance  of  life,  neither 
banning  sex  nor  exaggerating  it.  So  far,  the 
girl   who,   in  that  admirable   first  hint   at   her 

162 


EPIC   FORM 

character,  buys  casts  of  Greek  statues,  and 
loses  herself  in  an  innocent,  theoretically  volup- 
tuous, worship  of  them,  who  "  hates  Gothic " 
and  "  likes  the  sound  of  Corinthian,"  is  a  merely 
consistent  character,  delightfully  imagined.  But 
her  pagan  purity  is  not  such  a  simple  matter  as 
she  herself  considers  it.  It  is  her  nature  to 
excite  desire,  but  she  has  a  fastidious  horror  of 
physical  sex  ;  and  rather  than  endure  her 
husband  with  her  at  night,  she  jumps  out  of  the 
window  into  the  street.  She  desires  to  live 
altogether  above  the  reach  of  sex  ;  and  yet  she 
cannot  help  making  a  sexual  appeal  to  men. 
But  this  fastidious  hate  of  sex  seems  really  to 
be  the  form  taken  in  her  consciousness  by  a 
concealed  superstitious  fear  of  the  mysterious 
powers  of  existence.  So  long  as  this  remains 
concealed,  she  is  quite  willing  to  be  a  rebel,  and 
requires  only  her  own  self-approval.  But  even 
so,  she  has  explained  things  by  a  not  very  com- 
fortable metaphysic  ; 1  she  has  imagined  "  that 
the  world  resembled  a  stanza  or  melody  com- 
posed in  a  dream ;  it  was  wonderfully  excellent 
to  the  half-aroused  intelligence,  but  hopelessly 
absurd  at  the  full  waking ;  the  First  Cause 
worked  automatically  like  a  somnambulist,  and 
not  reflectively  like  a  sage."  Such  ideas  come 
very  near  to  a  fear  of  existence.     And  when  the 

1  The  form  of  her  metaphysic  anticipates  that  of  The  Dynasts. 

163 


THOMAS   HARDY 

grisly  catastrophe  happens,  the  fear  comes  out  of 
its  concealment,  and  has  its  own  way.  She  has 
deliberately  opposed  part  of  the  prescribed  order 
of  existence ;  and  she  has  fearfully  suffered. 
These  two  things  become  causally  connected  ; 
they  become,  that  is,  sin  and  its  punishment. 
She  must  repent ;  which  means  that,  having 
been  broken,  she  must  enjoy  her  brokenness, 
and,  if  possible,  add  to  it.  So  she  must  leave 
Jude,  and  go  back  to  tortured  submission  to  her 
husband ;  and  it  is  nothing  to  her,  absorbed  in 
the  fearful  passion  of  penitence,  that  to  leave 
Jude  is  to  hand  him  over  to  Arabella  and  dam- 
nation. Without  doubt,  Sue's  character  is  the 
subtlest  and  most  exciting  achievement  of 
Hardy's  psychological  imagination. 

The  story  as  it  progresses  has  an  accompani- 
ment of  emotional  significance  as  obvious  as  that 
of  Tess  of  the  Z)'  Urbervilles.  But  the  indignation 
with  the  tragic  fashion  of  existence  is  not  here 
hot  and  flaming,  but  cold  and  bitter  and  almost 
cynical.  It  is  brought  into  disconcerting  prom- 
inence by  being  personified  in  Jude's  son,  one  of 
the  most  daring,  and  certainly  one  of  the  most 
dreadful,  imaginations  in  literature.  This  horrible 
boy  seems  unconsciously  aware  of  the  whole 
dismal  past  of  human  existence,  and  seems  also 
to  see  nothing  in  the  future  but  endless  repeti- 
tion of  the  same  futility  of  suffering.     But  his 

164 


EPIC   FORM 

part  is  not  merely  one  of  gratuitous  commenta- 
tor ;  the  action  of  the  story  takes  its  final  tragic 
turn  from  his  interference.  That  interference  of 
his  is  a  thing  of  such  nightmare  horror,  that  it 
depends  simply  on  the  mood  in  which  one  reads 
of  it  or  thinks  of  it,  whether  it  is  to  seem 
appalling  or  only  grotesque.  At  any  rate,  like 
the  boy  himself,  it  is  not  easily  forgotten  ;  and, 
as  a  matter  of  technique,  one  can  only  be  as- 
tonished at  the  way  the  mood  which  surrounds 
the  whole  story  is  concentrated  into  this  formid- 
able small  boy,  and,  by  his  means,  inextricably 
woven  into  the  narrative  texture.  Even  so, 
however,  this  formal  condensation  of  the  mood 
is  not  enough  to  counteract  the  tremendous 
emphasis  it  takes  from  being  so  personified. 
The  emphasis  is  too  great  for  the  form  of  the 
book  as  a  whole  to  contain.  The  mood  breaks 
out,  not  quite  unmanaged,  but  by  no  means 
completely  mastered ;  it  "  chews  the  bit  and 
fights  against  the  reins."  There  has  been  a 
weakness  of  artistic  control ;  and,  when  such 
perilous  stuff  is  to  be  dealt  with,  it  is  only  by 
a  triumphant  and  utterly  unquestioned  mastery 
over  the  substance  that  art  can  properly  be 
said  to  achieve  itself.  Here,  in  spite  of  notably 
skilful  imagination,  the  art  has  undertaken  to 
express  something  which  it  cannot  quite  com- 
mand ;  and  this  is   even   more  obvious  in   the 

165 


THOMAS   HARDY 

few  exclamatory  remarks  the  author  puts  in, 
as  it  were,  on  his  own  account.  The  result,  in 
all  these  passages,  is  not  tragic  art,  the  noblest 
thing  man  has  within  his  power  ;  not  the  bringing 
of  life  in  its  most  threatening  aspect  into  firm 
obedience  to  man's  finest  desire — namely,  into 
perfect  form — with  the  consequent  turning  of 
fearful  matters  into  exaltation  for  the  spirit. 
Such  half-controlled  art  merely  effects  diatribe 
and  invective ;  and  it  has  scarce  anything  for 
the  spirit  but  dismay  and  offence.  But  Jude 
the  Obscure  is  a  book  that  can  afford  occasionally 
to  commit  this  fault ;  that  it  can  do  so,  is  the 
clearest  testimony  to  its  greatness.  To  its 
amazing  insight  into  human  nature,  and  to 
the  terrible  cogency  of  its  tragic  motion,  is 
added  a  shapely  grandeur  of  formal  unity  which, 
in  the  whole,  is  little  disturbed  by  the  flaws  in 
its  artistic  control ;  and  which  makes  it  one  of 
the  most  illustrious  things  in  modern  literature. 
Throughout  this  discussion  of  Hardy's  fiction 
I  have  simply  assumed  the  metaphysic  which  is 
the  ultimate  matter  of  his  art,  without  attempt- 
ing in  any  way  to  examine  it  as  a  "  truth."  I 
conceive  that  to  be  no  part  of  my  business  here  ; 
it  is  nothing  to  criticism,  whether  one  considers 
the  basic  metaphysic  of  artistic  expression  to  be  a 
true  or  false,  an  agreeable  or  disagreeable,  repre- 
sentation of  the  manner  of  our  existence  in  this 

166 


EPIC   FORM 

world.  We  may  leave  that  to  philosophy  or 
religion.  But  it  must  be  true  to  the  artist, 
as  long,  at  least,  as  he  is  in  his  art.  And  it 
must,  for  the  reader,  be  a  tenable,  plausible,  and 
coherent  speculation,  even  when  liberated  from 
the  art  which  holds  it.  So  much  is  axiomatic. 
But  the  real  question  is,  whether,  by  causing 
his  version  of  life  to  relate  itself  closely  and 
naturally  with  his  metaphysic,  the  artist  attains 
to  that  complete  formality  which  is  internal, 
intellectual,  and  emotional,  as  well  as  external, 
the  shapeliness  of  technique  ;  whether,  moreover, 
this  formality  reaches  beyond  the  stuff  of  familiar 
experience,  to  embrace  the  rarer  experience,  the 
consciousness  that  life  belongs  to  some  absolute 
reality.  Thus,  by  reducing  the  whole  sense  of 
living  to  some  formality,  some  shapeliness  of 
significance,  life  attains,  in  the  art,  to  mastery 
over  itself;  it  makes  itself  what  it  profoundly 
desires  to  be,  a  manner  of  existence  which  is 
measured  and  proportioned  ;  and  while  we  are 
immersed  in  the  art,  the  mere  sense  of  living 
becomes  the  delighted  sense  of  a  perfectly 
masterful  living.  If  a  metaphysic  can  effect 
this,  it  is  justified ;  and  the  metaphysic  of 
Hardy's  art  unquestionably  does  effect  this. 
Only  in  this  way,  it  seems  to  me,  can  the  value 
of  an  art  be  fixed  to  something  firmer  than 
opinion :  to  fix  its  value  to  the  "  truth  "  of  its 

167 


THOMAS   HARDY 

conceptions,  the  pleasantness  of  its  tone,  or  the 
usefulness,  moral  or  otherwise,  of  its  purport, 
is  only  to  make  it  endlessly  debatable.  But  the 
interests  of  moral  usefulness  and  complete 
formality  will  not  often  be  in  opposition — they 
certainly  are  not  in  Hardy  ;  for  genuine  morality 
is  but  a  kind  of  shapeliness. 

No  great  poet  can  do  without  a  metaphysic  : 
but  that  does  not  mean  that  it  must  always  be 
explicit.  Creative  literature  divides  itself  into 
two  main  kinds ;  that  in  which  a  metaphysic  is 
fitted  to  experience,  and  that  in  which  experi- 
ence is  fitted  to  a  metaphysic.  The  first  kind  is 
the  work  of  the  poet  who  judges  instinctively ; 
the  second,  of  the  poet  who  judges  intellectually. 
The  two  types  have  been  described,  once  and 
for  all,  by  Coleridge,  in  the  persons  of  Shake- 
speare and  Milton : 

"  While  the  former  darts  himself  forth,  and  passes  into 
all  the  forms  of  human  character  and  passion,  the  one 
Proteus  of  the  fire  and  the  flood ;  the  other  attracts  all 
forms  and  things  to  himself,  into  the  unity  of  his  own 
ideal.  All  things  and  modes  of  action  shape  themselves 
anew  in  the  being  of  Milton  ;  while  Shakespeare  becomes 
all  things,  yet  for  ever  remaining  himself." 

It  is  only  an  accident  that,  in  the  contrast 
thus  personified,  the  instinctively  judging  poet 
is  dramatic,  the  intellectually  judging  is  epic. 
There  is  no  connection   between    this   division 

168 


EPIC   FORM 

and  the  kind  of  form;  for  if  we  compare  English 
poets  with  Greek,  it  is  evident  that  Milton  must 
go  with  iEschylus,  Shakespeare  with  Homer ; 
not  the  two  epic  poets  together,  nor  the  two 
dramatists.  Hardy  in  his  fiction  uses  forms 
which  may  reasonably  be  called  both  dramatic 
and  epic ;  but  throughout  the  whole  of  his 
work,  he  belongs  clearly  to  the  army  under 
Milton.  He  does  not  become  the  life  he  deals 
with,  but  compels  it  all  to  become  himself,  to 
fit  in  with  a  constant  manner  of  intellectual 
judgment ;  and  not  only  life,  but  even  our  en- 
joyment of  life,  he  forces  to  submit  to  this 
judgment ;  and  so  his  art  is  one  which  sorts 
well  with  the  increasing  self-consciousness  of 
human  nature.  There  is  no  rational  possibility 
of  preference  for  the  one  or  the  other  of  these 
two  kinds  of  literature.  In  them  we  must  only 
see  two  methods  of  arriving  at  one  end — formal 
mastery. 


169 


VII 
THE   POEMS 

Hardy's  poems  were  originally  brought  out  in 
three  collections :  Wessex  Poems,  Poems  of 
the  Past  and  the  Present,  Time's  Laughing- 
stocks.  There  is  a  continuous  process  of  de- 
velopment in  them.  If  we  go  through  the  three 
volumes  in  this  order,  it  will  certainly  at  first 
appear  that  the  poems  are  attractive  chiefly 
because  of  their  authorship ;  they  are  facets  of 
an  unusually  interesting  mind  somewhat  awk- 
wardly illuminated.  The  novelist  versifying 
himself  is  not  often  a  success.  He  is  apt  to 
think  that  the  skill  habitual  to  him  will  serve 
his  turn  in  poetry,  if  only  he  adds  to  it  a  little 
concern  for  the  laws  of  metre  ;  and  Hardy's 
earlier  poems  seem  only  one  more  negative  proof, 
that  nothing  requires  a  more  patiently  special- 
ized skill  than  poetry.  But  if  we  persevere  in 
reading  these  pieces  of  interesting  thought  and 
strict  external  form,  combined,  on  the  whole, 
with  unexciting,  unpoetic  language — language 
that   neither  stirs  imagination  nor  gives  living 

170 


THE   POEMS 

shape  to  the  substance — we  shall  come  to  per- 
ceive that  a  somewhat  novel  kind  of  poetry  is 
beginning  to  emerge  out  of  the  general  failure  ; 
and  in  several  pages  of  the  second  volume,  and 
in  most  of  the  third,  it  becomes  evident  that 
Hardy  has  made  a  genuine  addition  to  English 
poetry ;  he  has  brought  a  decidedly  unusual 
idiosyncrasy  both  of  substance  and  of  method 
into  fine  artistic  control. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  how  this  has  come 
about.  In  the  chapter  of  "  Characteristics  "  it 
was  noted  that  Hardy's  diction  shows,  in  the 
main,  deficient  apprehension  of  the  concealed 
energies  in  language — of  its  "  potential."  The 
deficiency  is  plainly  much  more  serious  for 
poetry  than  for  prose.  It  is  possible  for  prose 
to  rely  entirely  on  the  logical  value  of  words, 
leaving  the  potential  to  take  care  of  itself;  so 
constructed,  indeed,  it  can,  in  a  narrow  scope, 
do  quite  admirably.  But  poetry  cannot  be  con- 
structed merely  out  of  the  logic  of  language ; 
some  conscious  management  of  the  potential  in 
words,  of  their  nameless  excitations,  must  go 
to  its  making.  If  one  who  depends,  through 
choice  or  necessity,  almost  wholly  on  the  logical 
or  kinetic  value  of  individual  words,  wishes  to 
make  poetry,  there  is  only  one  way  open  to  him  ; 
it  is  Pope's  way.  He  must  be  scrupulous  and 
ingenious   to  attend  to  the  potential  which  is 

171 


THOMAS   HARDY 

the  property  not  of  individual  words,  but  of 
patterns  of  words ;  only  the  pattern  can  save 
him  from  prosing.  Great  poetry  will  not  result ; 
for  the  manner  of  great  poetry  must  certainly 
use  the  potential,  the  excitation,  of  words  them- 
selves and  of  patterns  of  words  simultaneously. 
But  a  hard,  straightforward  diction,  of  value 
predominantly  logical,  enclosed,  almost  as  if  in 
some  transparent  case,  in  an  aura  of  the  poten- 
tial energy  that  is  derived  from  a  continuous, 
repeating  pattern  of  accent  and  rhyme — this 
may  have  a  quite  notable  effect.  The  pattern, 
however,  must  be  rigidly  maintained.  It  can 
scarcely  be  modulated  without  endangering  the 
delicate  quality  which  keeps  such  poetry  just 
on  the  right  side  of  versified  prose.  It  is  always, 
in  fact,  a  ticklish  matter  for  this  kind  of  writing 
to  justify  itself.  If  it  fails  to  be  poetry,  why 
was  it  not  set  down  as  honest  prose  ?  For  when 
the  pattern  is  unable  to  do  its  required  work, 
it  is  felt  simply  as  an  inconvenient  misfortune  ; 
as  here : 

But  Buonaparte  still  tarried. 
His  project  had  miscarried  ; 
At  the  last  hour,  equipped  for  victory, 
The  fleet  had  paused  ;    his  subtle  combinations   had   been 
parried 

By  British  strategy. 

And  yet,  at  the  beginning  of  this  poem,  the 
pattern  promised  remarkably  well : 

172 


THE   POEMS 

In  a  ferny  byway 

Near  the  great  South  Wessex  Highway, 
A  homestead  raised  its  breakfast-smoke  aloft ; 
The  dew-damps  still  lay  steamless,  for  the  sun  had  made  no 
skyway, 

And  twilight  cloaked  the  croft. 


But  Pope  himself,  for  all  his  lifelong  practice 
and  the  nicety  of  his  talent,  failed  often  enough 
to  give  his  verses  any  real  warrant  of  their 
pretence  to  poetry ;  and  we  ought  not  to  be 
surprised  that  Hardy,  whose  poems  have  only 
been  a  bye  work  of  his  artistic  life,  is  in  them 
more  often  disguising  prose  than  transmuting 
it.  He  has,  however,  one  very  great  advantage 
over  Pope  ;  his  thought,  whether  its  expression 
justify  the  form  given  to  it  or  not,  is  always 
considerable  for  its  frankness  and  originality. 
Let  him  treat  of  the  tritest  or  most  ordinary 
thing,  he  will  give  some  turn  to  the  treatment 
that  will  repay  attention.  It  need  hardly  be 
said,  that  it  is  only  in  the  principles  of  poetic 
method  that  there  is  any  suggestion  of  compari- 
son with  Pope  at  all ;  in  genius,  temperament, 
characteristic  thought,  the  two  are  as  unlike  as 
may  be.  But  in  poetic  method,  it  seems  to  me 
that  Pope's  example  is  of  some  critical  value 
here. 

Hardy,  at  any  rate,  whether  instinctively  or 
consciously  perceiving  the  necessity  for  him,  is 

173 


THOMAS   HARDY 

extraordinarily  careful  to  maintain  exactitude  of 
pattern — rhyme,  metre,  and  stanza.  His  skill 
in  keeping  each  poem  to  one  firm  consistent 
mould  is  evident  from  the  first,  especially  as  the 
mould  itself  is  usually  conspicuous  for  some 
intricacy ;  a  thing  which  is  also  necessary,  if 
words  of  such  simple  kinetic  force  are  markedly 
to  acquire  the  potential  of  poetry.  In  his  later 
poems,  the  maintenance  of  uncommon  pattern  is 
done  with  wonderfully  deft  precision  ;  and  when 
the  pattern  is  a  common  one,  he  is  fond  of 
enhancing  it  by  such  tricks  as  keeping  a  single 
rhyme  regularly  sounding  throughout  a  poem's 
whole  length ;  in  one  instance,  through  thirty- 
two  stanzas.  The  artistic  purpose,  conscious  or 
otherwise,  of  all  this  is  never  anything  like 
bravura ;  it  is  mere  necessity, — except  for  the 
few  poems  written  in  dialect,  like  the  delightful 
Fire  at  Tranter  Sweatleifs,  the  only  surviving 
piece,  it  is  said,  of  a  deal  of  youthful  versifying. 
Where  dialect  occurs,  the  same  access  of  poten- 
tial in  the  words  themselves  happens  as  was 
noted  in  the  case  of  Hardy's  prose.  For  the 
rest,  however,  it  is  mainly  from  their  strict  and 
evident  pattern  that  the  words  have  to  derive 
that  heightened  vigour  which  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  poetry  ;  as  far,  that  is,  as  technique 
is  concerned.  For  in  those  pieces  where  some- 
thing   genuinely   poetical   does    unquestionably 

174 


THE   POEMS 

come  off,  it  is  pretty  easy  to  see  that  subject  has 
had  as  much  to  do  with  it  as  pattern.  There 
are  tAvo  main  classes  of  subject  in  which  Hardy 
achieves  a  real  and  even  excellent  poetry.  Both 
of  them,  it  appears,  make  this  possible  by  reason 
of  the  intense  fusion  and  concentration  of 
thought  which  they  promote.  It  seems  that 
they  are  a  kind  of  subject  which  cannot  be 
connectedly  thought  out  without  such  heat  of 
intellect  as  will  automatically  burn  up  every- 
thing that  is  not  absolutely  required  by  the 
idea  for  its  statement.  And  if  we  glance  at 
the  obvious  failures,  it  is  plain  that  this  poetic 
method  of  Hardy's  is  most  liable  to  break  down 
when  it  is  dealing  with  the  not  quite  essential, 
with  the  slightly  superfluous  detail. 

Besides  the  indubitable  failures  and  the  not 
less  indubitable  triumphs  of  Hardy's  poetic 
method,  some  mention  must  be  made  of  those 
fairly  numerous  pieces  which  may  roughly  be 
called  epigrams ;  things  hovering  between  prose 
and  poetry.  They  usually  versify  some  curi- 
osity of  thought,  some  reflection  from  the 
unexpected  aspect  of  things,  some  ironical 
comment  on  life  and  death,  rather  insistently 
elaborating  the  favourite  theme  of  Donne's 
preaching,  that  "  all  our  life  is  but  a  going  out 
to  the  place  of  execution."  Such  verses  as 
those  on  Shelley  s  Skylark,  pondering  the  fate 

175 


THOMAS    HARDY 

of  that  "  little  ball  of  feather  and  bone,"  "  that 
tiny  pinch  of  priceless  dust " ;  or  as  those  that 
lightly  warn  us  not  to  judge  a  man's  character 
nowadays  by  his  house  [Architectural  Masks), 
are  certainly  pleasing  and,  somehow,  memorable, 
slight  things  as  they  are.  Occasionally  the  irony 
is  given  some  modest  form  of  fiction ;  as  when 
the  architect  refuses  his  client's  whimsy  for 
spiral  staircases,  on  the  ground  that  they  would 
prove  inconvenient  for  the  handling  of  her  coffin. 
Or  it  is  expanded  to  considerable  length,  with- 
out losing  its  originating  epigrammatic  quality  ; 
as  in  My  Cicely  or  The  Souls  of  the  Slain. 
The  latter  poem  is  a  characteristic  instance  both 
of  Hardy's  unexpected  reflection  and  of  a  style 
to  which  it  is  equally  difficult  to  give  or  to 
refuse  the  name  of  poetry. 

The  poems  wherein  Hardy's  idiosyncrasy  of 
thought  and  style  unite  in  undeniable,  though 
not  unqualifiable,  achievement,  are  those  which 
reveal  either  the  philosophical  or  the  psycho- 
logical artist ;  and  of  these  the  latter  kind  is 
certainly  the  greater.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to 
give  lyrical  form  to  abstruse  metaphysical 
speculation,  which  is  neither  pure  faith  nor  pure 
scepticism,  without  discovering  that  what  is 
convenient  for  the  art  is  inconvenient  for  the 
philosophy.  The  profoundly  purposeless  energy 
of  existence ;   its  terrible  limitations,  compared 

176 


THE   POEMS 

with  what,  in  our  fantasy,  it  might  have  been  ; 
the  unalterable  pace  of  what  Hardy  excellently 
calls  its  "  rote-restricted  ways "  (suggesting 
thereby  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  modern 
scientific  ideas — that  what  we  call  the  physical 
laws  are  strictly  the  habits  of  matter) :  all  these 
may  be  very  impressively  put  into  lyrical  form 
by  the  device  of  addressing  such  conceptions  under 
the  name  of  God.  But  even  while  aesthetic 
appreciation  is  acknowledging  the  result  to  be 
serious  and  moving,  philosophy  can  hardly  keep 
quiet :  "  If  these  things  trouble  you,  why  in- 
crease their  trouble  by  calling  them  God  ? 
Surely  even  art  must  perceive  that  these  dis- 
turbing conceptions  are  the  work  of  human  wit 
and  sense,  and  that,  if  God  be  at  all,  it  is  a 
million  to  one  He  is  altogether  outside  any 
reach  of  wits  and  senses  which  the  mere  close 
needs  of  evolving  life  have  fashioned  ? "  Some 
such  objection  is  unavoidably  aroused  by  Hardy's 
lyrical  attribution  to  the  Deity  of  the  humanly 
perceived  limits  of  existence  ;  and  art  which  can 
be  so  easily  questioned,  though  by  something 
exterior  to  art,  is  scarcely  to  be  called  perfect. 
Nevertheless,  the  whole  process  of  worldly 
existence,  as  we  must  to-day  conceive  it,  is  nobly 
and  courageously  brought  before  us  in  these 
poems ;  exhibited  with  austere,  unflinching 
severity  not  only  to  our  minds  but  also  to 
m  177 


THOMAS   HARDY 

emotion.  This  sort  of  thing  is  decidedly 
impressive,  in  spite  of  anything  strict  reason  may 
say ;  the  creatures  of  the  earth  are  supposed  to 
be  speaking : 

Has  some  Vast  Imbecility, 

Mighty  to  build  and  blend, 
But  impotent  to  tend, 
Framed  us  in  jest,  and  left  us  now  to  hazardry  ? 

Or  come  we  of  an  Automaton 

Unconscious  of  our  pains  ?     .     .     . 
Or  are  we  live  remains 
Of  Godhead  dying  downwards,  brain  and  eye  now  gone  ? 

The  notion  in  the  italicized  words  is  one  of 
those  inventions  in  artistic  metaphysic  which 
can  do  without,  and  even  go  against,  the 
approval  of  reason,  because  they  excite  in  us  the 
sense  of  vague,  notorious  feeling  finally  reduced 
to  vivid  and  unique  form. 

There  remain  those  poems  which  I  have 
spoken  of  as  the  work  of  eminently  psychologi- 
cal art.  Here  there  is  nothing  that  provokes 
cavil ;  aesthetic  satisfaction  has  no  need  to 
excuse  itself  to  philosophy.  They  are  not 
narrative ;  Hardy's  poetic  method  requires  for 
its  best  success  something  more  concentrated 
than  narrative.  They  are  momentary  dramas  of 
passionate  or  ironical  human  event,  in  which  the 
ardent  emotional  essence  of  character  or  con- 
duct is  so  fined  down  and  intensified,  that  it 

178 


THE   POEMS 

needs  but  to  be  stated  in  some  undecorated 
vigour  of  language,  masterfully  controlled  into 
pattern,  to  become  unquestionable  poetry.  It 
is  poetry  which,  for  its  power  of  showing  the 
spirit  of  passionate  action  instantaneously 
dramatized,  cannot  be  closely  likened  except 
in  some  of  the  old  ballads,  in  some  such  dis- 
turbing instance  of  tragic  psychology  as  that 
famous  one,  "  Edward,  Edward."  Passion, 
however,  is  not  the  invariable  rule  here.  These 
sudden  declarations  of  human  nature  in  quint- 
essence are  sometimes  merely  ironical,  as  in 
those  good-humoured  gibes  at  systematic 
morality,  "  The  Ruined  Maid"  and  "  The  Dark- 
Eyed  Gentleman"  Occasionally  the  drama 
has  a  symbolic  air ;  a  good  instance  is  the 
"  tale  "  called  "  The  Supplante?*  " — for,  as  in 
the  ballads,  Hardy's  lyric  sometimes  approaches 
narrative  without  actually  reaching  it.  In  this 
singular  poem,  a  man  goes  to  lay  memorial 
flowers  on  the  tomb  of  his  beloved,  but  yields 
to  the  enticings  of  the  cemetery-keeper's 
daughter,  who  is  celebrating  her  birthday  with 
"  wines  of  France  "  and  a  ball  at  the  cemetery- 
lodge.  He  leaves  her,  and  she  has  a  child  by 
him ;  next  year,  when  he  returns  to  accomplish 
"  his  frustrate  first  intent,"  he  finds  the  cemetery- 
keeper's  daughter  wandering,  an  outcast,  among 
the  tombs  with  her  baby.     This  time,  she  tries 

179 


THOMAS   HARDY 

to  make  his  pity  come  between  his  dead  love 
and  himself.     But  he  flings  her  off: 

He  turns — -unpitying,  passion-tossed  ; 

"  I  know  you  not !  "  he  cries, 
"  Nor  know  your  child.     I  knew  this  maid, 

But  she's  in  Paradise  !  " 
And  swiftly  in  the  winter  shade 

He  breaks  from  her  and  flies. 

There  is  a  certain  terrible  reality  in  the  action 
of  this  line  ballad  ;  but  evidently  its  scene  is  no 
cemetery  in  the  actual  world,  but  one  that  lies 
in  some  strange  district  of  the  imagination ;  the 
reality  is  that  of  a  symbol.  A  poem  whose 
reality  is  even  further  removed  from  actuality 
is  the  ballad  of  "  The  Well- Beloved"  wherein 
a  lover  meets  a  wraith  which  turns  out  to  be  his 
own  idealization  of  his  beloved.  He  would 
marry  the  wraith  ;  but 

She,  proudly,  thinning  in  the  gloom  : 
"  Though,  since  troth-plight  began, 

I've  ever  stood  as  bride  to  groom, 
I  wed  no  mortal  man  !  " 

The  danger  for  Hardy  in  this  kind  of  lyrical 
symbolic  drama  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  does  not 
necessitate  an  absolute  concentration  of  subject; 
we  are  apt  to  get  such  inept  lines  as  these,  which 
occur  a  verse  or  two  above  those  just  quoted  : 

"  O  fatuous  man,  this  truth  infer, 
Brides  are  not  what  they  seem." 

180 


THE   POEMS 

There  is  something  of  the  tight-rope  walker's 
risk  in  this  method  of  his ;  the  least  slip,  and  a 
fall  is  certain. 

But  most  of  the  poems  in  the  class  I  am  con- 
sidering do  not  transcend  the  manner  of  actual 
life ;  not,  at  least,  by  revealing  some  symbolic 
parallel  in  imaginary  regions.  Actuality  is 
transcended  in  them  only  by  being  fused  and 
molten  into  glowing  intensity.  Their  momentary 
drama  requires  a  psychology  purified  from  acci- 
dentals, completely  at  one  with  itself;  and 
Hardy's  method  is  in  consequence  assured  of 
good  success.  The  reading  of  these  poems 
leaves  a  firm  impress  on  the  imagination.  It  is 
not  their  form  that  survives  in  memory.  The 
form  is  seldom  beautiful  in  itself ;  it  keeps  itself 
strictly  to  its  necessary  function  of  empowering 
the  gist  of  the  poem  with  the  potential  which 
poetry  requires.  That  it  performs  this  function 
is  plain  from  the  way  memory  is  forced  to  lay 
hold  of  the  gist ;  but  that  memory  is  at  the 
same  time  willing  to  let  the  form  itself  slip, 
shows  that  this  poetry  is  not  of  the  highest 
order.  No  great  poetry  will  leave  us  remember- 
ing what  it  said  unless  we  also  remember  a  good 
deal  of  how  this  was  said ;  the  how  and  the 
what  are,  indeed,  inseparable.  In  Hardy's 
lyrical  poems  they  are  separable ;  his  method  is 
such,  that  they  could  not  be  otherwise.     Never- 

181 


THOMAS   HARDY 

theless,  though  not  of  the  highest,  his  psycho- 
logical poems  (to  give  them  a  handy  label)  are 
of  a  high  order  ;  their  effect  on  imagination  and 
emotion  sufficiently  declares  that.  The  woman 
who,  hearing  they  are  bringing  home  the  corpse 
of  her  husband  suddenly  killed,  has  her  first 
grief  for  the  untidiness  of  her  rooms,  but  after- 
wards dies  of  a  broken  heart ;  the  man  who 
traduces  the  honour  of  his  dead  love  in  order  to 
do  her  daughter  good  ;  the  lover  who  suddenly 
finds  his  innocent  beloved  had  once  abetted  a 
murder  and  sent  a  man  to  the  gallows ;  the 
trampwoman  who,  in  a  whim  of  angering  her 
fancy-man,  is  blasted  by  the  result,  again  a 
murdering  and  a  hanging  ;  the  barren  wife  who, 
after  longingly  awaiting  her  absent  husband's 
return,  quietly  leaves  him  to  the  woman  who 
will  bear  him  a  child ;  the  mother  who  despe- 
rately medicines  a  betrayed  daughter  with  an 
infamous  brew,  causing  her  death  just  as  the 
seducer  announces  his  repentant  desire  to  marry 
her ; — these  tense  dramatic  figures,  with  their 
tragic  and  significant  spirits  revealed  in  a  sort  of 
instantaneous  light,  are  not  easily  forgotten. 
Imagination  knows  itself  the  richer  and  the 
wiser  for  them.  The  poems  are  thoroughly 
modern,  too ;  their  persons  do  not  belong  to 
romance  or  story,  but  to  recognizable,  everyday 
species   of  the   present ;    and   the   turn  of  the 

182 


THE    POEMS 

psychology,  though  comment  and  moralizing  are 
avoided,  frequently  implies  some  typical  modern 
questioning  of  received  notions.  The  whole 
body  of  the  poems  of  this  kind  will  perhaps 
include  twice  as  many  as  those  to  which  I  have 
alluded  ;  several  are  not  obviously  tragical,  some 
have  a  humorous  twist.  But  they  stand  out 
pretty  clearly  from  the  rest  of  Hardy's  poems, 
and  form  a  natural  group ;  and  they  are  poems 
which,  it  seems  to  me,  deserve  a  special  place  in 
our  literature. 


183 


:  z 

THT 


: 


■it:  '.  ' 


1*^ 


:?:.i  i  r .".-_-.  r  z 


:: 


:■ . i  - 


.  rT~  _1    -       ZL  ZZl 


__z 


-  _  - 


... 


? 

F~ "r 


THOMAS    HARDY 

unity  which  the  mere  logic  of  events  can  only 
suggest ;  what  was  simply  war,  becomes  drama. 
The  function  of  Cervantes'  spirits,  his  "phan- 
toms of  the  imagination  "  and  "  hidden  thoughts 
of  the  soul," — Spain  crowned  with  towers, 
War,  Sickness,  and  Famine — practically  stops 
here ;  and  perhaps  Hardy's  first  intention  stopt 
here  also.  But  in  The  Dynasts,  out  of  this 
primary  function  of  the  Intelligences  grows  an 
artistic  condition  completely  reversing  that  of 
the  original  conception  ;  and  it  is  because  of  this 
that  the  poem  has  its  real  significance.  In  the 
action  of  the  phantoms,  the  mortal  action  has  been 
altogether  dissolved.  The  choruses  of  Pities, 
Ironies,  and  Years  are  by  no  means  there  in  order 
to  provide  an  illuminating  gloss  of  reflective 
generalization  on  the  rages  of  the  Napoleonic 
wars  ;  on  the  contrary,  "fiercely  the  predestined 
plot  proceeds,"  in  order  to  provide  these  spirits 
with  tragic  entertainment  and  speculation.  The 
final  purport  of  the  poem  is  not  the  artistic 
exhibition  of  the  special  material  borrowed  from 
history,  exaggerated  by  the  supposed  interest 
taken  in  it  by  a  set  of  spiritual  commentators ; 
but  it  is  the  artistic  exhibition  of  a  philosophy, 
or  rather  of  an  attitude  to  existence — philosophy 
or  attitude  being  typified  in  these  spirits,  and 
served  by  the  vast  action  which  they  watch  with 
a  chance   of  exact  expression,  of  showing  how 

186 


THE   DYNASTS 

its  theory,  or  mood,  frames  when  applied  inter- 
pretatively  to  a  concrete  mass  of  events.  The 
poem  does  not  fail  thereby  of  being  a  spacious 
chronicle-play ;  on  the  whole  it  is  certainly  the 
grandest  of  all  imaginative  dealings  with  the 
last  of  the  Titans  and  his  tremendous  affairs. 
But  it  is  much  more  than  this.  It  is  the  char- 
acteristic poem  of  our  age ;  and  characteristic 
in  a  profound  fashion  that  has  not  been  lately 
achieved  by  poetry  among  us — in  the  fashion 
of  its  philosophy.  That  is  putting  the  case  with 
only  verbal  convenience,  perhaps.  Philosophy 
is  a  useful  word  ;  but  apt  to  turn  awkward  when 
used  for  poetry.  The  great  characteristic  of 
The  Dynasts  is,  that  in  it  we  have  artistic 
formation,  definite  and  explicit,  of  the  reach 
of  man's  present  consciousness  of  the  world, 
of  his  conception  of  human  and  cosmic  destiny, 
of  mind's  chief  traffic  with  the  surrounding 
existence  as  far  as  the  inevitable  and  unsur- 
mountable  barriers.  That  is  all  "  philosophical " 
poetry  can  mean.  It  must  give  certain  si  tape 
to  an  aesthetic  metaphysic,  formulate  in  clear 
art  some  supposed  relation  of  known  and  un- 
knowable, whereby  man  may  live.  But  there 
is  no  necessity  that  the  formulation,  the  meta- 
physic, should  have  to  submit  itself  to  a  strictly 
philosophical  scrutiny.  Such  a  poem  as  The 
Dynasts  with  its   opportunities   of  discoursing 

187 


THOMAS    HARDY 

at  large,  easily  avoids  the  fault  noted  in 
the  corresponding  lyrical  poems,  the  fault 
of  affronting  philosophy.  But  this  does  not 
mean  that  The  Dynasts  may  be  treated 
like  a  sorites.  The  relation  of  known  and 
unknowable  is  matter  for  emotion  rather  than 
for  reason ;  and  what  this  poem  achieves  is 
the  presenting  to  emotion  of  a  metaphysical 
idea  held  in  some  consistent  and  noble 
shaping.  And  this  idea  is  one  that  under- 
lies most  of  the  intellectual  life  of  our  time ; 
though  the  shaping  is  altogether  the  poet's  own. 
Hardy,  in  The  Dynasts,  attains  to  something 
that  the  age  of  Tennyson  and  Browning  quite 
failed  to  effect.1  We  can  only  say  (but  of 
course  it  must  be  said  without  proposing  further 
comparison)  that  this  epic-drama  of  Thomas 
Hardy's  is,  in  what  may  be  called  its  conceptual 
poetry,  akin  to  the  works  of  Milton  and  Words- 
worth in  our  literature,  and  beyond  it  to  "  Faust" 
and  "  Prometheus  Bound." 

It  is  certainly  not,  however,  the  figuring  of 
Napoleon  in  The  Dynasts  which  suggests 
its  comparison  with  the  conceptual  poetry  of 
Satan,    Prometheus   and    Faust.      Napoleon  is 

1  Though  Matthew  Arnold  comes  near  to  effecting  it ;  Swinburne 
also  curiously  near,  in  such  poems  as  the  Hymn  of  Man ; 
and  Emerson's  poetry  (if  we  may  count  him  in)  nearest  of  all, — but 
of  course  he  had  the  advantage,  for  a  writer  of  that  time,  of  not 
being  an  Englishman. 

188 


THE   DYNASTS 

only  one  of  "  Earth's  jackaclocks,"  concerning 
whom  we  are  warned  at  the  beginning  of  the 
poem,  that  in  order  to  enjoy  their  drama  we 
must  just  pretend  them  to  be  "not  fugled  by 
one  Will,  but  function-free  "  ;  it  being  from  the 
start  perfectly  clear,  outside  this  pretence,  that 
there  is  no  room  for  anything  "  function-free  " 
whatever  in  the  rigid  monism  of  the  whole 
poem.  And  it  cannot  be  by  denial,  but  only 
by  extreme  artistic  assertion,  of  an  individual 
free  will,  that  those  vast,  symbolic  figures  may 
be  created,  in  which  poetic  formulation  of  the 
human  mind  passionately  relating  itself  with  the 
unknowable  is  at  its  supremest,  because  most 
inescapable  for  our  emotions.  Zarathustra,  for 
instance,  the  youngest  of  these  symbolic  figures, 
is  a  glorification  of  free  will  in  the  midst  of  a 
metaphysic  which,  like  Hardy's,  makes  free  will 
inconceivable ;  the  supreme  illusion  and  the 
supreme  disillusion  co-exist  in  him,  the  former 
being  required  for  an  overwhelming  formulation 
of  the  latter.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how 
Hardy,  the  artist,  is  so  compelled  by  the  logic 
of  monism  that  free  will  can  have  no  place  in 
his  poem ;  whereas  Nietzsche,  the  philosopher, 
cheerfully  puts  the  two  incompatibles  together. 
And  it  is  interesting  to  note  further,  that  both 
are  justified  artistically;  Nietzsche  by  the  splen- 
dour and  anger  of  his  formulation,  Hardy  by 

189 


THOMAS   HARDY 

the  simplicity  and  gravity  of  his. — It  was  not 
therefore  possible  for  the  subject  of  The 
Dynasts  to  be  a  human  or  Titanic  figure  im- 
mensely symbolizing  the  conceptual  poetry;  this 
latter  must  itself  be  the  direct  subject  of  the 
drama.  So  is  it  also  with  Wordsworth's  greatest 
poetry.  But  Hardy  has  nothing  of  Words- 
worth's extraordinary  compensation  ;  his  amaz- 
ing fusion  of  abstruse  idea  and  perfect  poesy,  so 
that  it  is  no  flourish  of  admiration,  but  simple 
truth,  to  say  that  what  Wordsworth  means  can 
only  be  expressed  in  the  language  he  himself  uses. 
Of  Hardy's  inability  to  write  with  anything  like 
the  noble  manners  of  those  other  poets  I  have 
mentioned,  there  need  be  no  discussion.  Never- 
theless, it  is  only  with  the  work  of  such  poets 
that  The  Dynasts  can  be  profitably  compared. 

The  Dy?iasts,  then,  is  a  play  within  a  play. 
The  structure  is,  perhaps,  a  little  troublesome  to 
attention.  The  inner  play,  the  chronicle,  seems 
at  first  too  exciting,  too  massive,  to  be  properly 
enclosed  within  the  other ;  and  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  easiest  way  to  read  The  Dynasts  is 
to  skip  everything  printed  in  italics — the  sur- 
rounding, supernatural  drama,  that  is.  It  is 
sometimes  desirable,  for  the  purpose  of  artistic 
enjoyment,  to  ignore  a  good  part  of  the  poet's 
purpose.  The  person,  for  instance,  who  is 
scrupulous  to  work  out  the  moral  allegory  in 

190 


THE   DYNASTS 

"  The  Faerie  Queene "  at  every  stage,  will 
certainly  not  enjoy  it  so  much  as  the  person 
who  simply  loses  himself  in  the  poem's  beauty. 
Although  to  read  The  Dynasts  merely  as  a 
great  chronicle-play  would  be  to  miss  the  real 
significance  of  the  whole  thing,  it  might  con- 
ceivably be  maintained  that  the  poem,  so  read, 
becomes  artistically  more  enjoyable.  That  this 
is  conceivable  shows,  I  think,  an  imperfect 
structure ;  no  one  could  conceivably  maintain 
that  "  Paradise  Lost "  and  "  Prometheus  Bound  " 
do  not  become  artistically  the  more  enjoyable, 
the  more  the  moral  significance  of  Satan  and 
Prometheus  is  understood.  But  though  this 
attitude  to  The  Dynasts  is  conceivable,  to 
read  the  poem  with  scrupulous  attention  to  the 
poet's  whole  purpose  is  very  far  from  confirming 
it.  The  effect  of  the  supernatural  drama  is, 
certainly,  somewhat  to  dehumanize  the  his- 
torical drama ;  but  it  is  surprising  how  Hardy 
manages  to  exhibit  the  vast  human  action  as 
being  "  fugled  by  one  Will "  without  making  it 
uninteresting.  And  the  inevitable  dehumaniza- 
tion,  caused  by  the  poem's  simple,  rigid  fatalism, 
is  easily  outweighed  by  the  fascination  of  watch- 
ing how  this  huge,  clamouring  turbulence  of 
mortal  affairs  is  firmly  shaped  into  a  great 
concrete  symbol  of  the  ideas  proposed  and 
questioned    in    the    surrounding    supernatural 

191 


THOMAS    HARDY 

drama.  What  the  character  of  Prometheus,  in 
fact,  is  in  "  Prometheus  Bound,"  the  Napoleonic 
chronicle  is  in  The  Dynasts.  But  by  sym- 
bolizing the  fundamental  purpose  in  the  fortunes 
and  character  of  a  single  superhuman  figure,  an 
absolute  fusion  of  the  conceptual  poetry  and 
the  whole  embodiment  is  possible  ;  Hardy  might 
have  achieved  this,  if  he  had  taken  for  his  symbol 
Napoleon  instead  of  the  Napoleonic  chronicle. 
In  his  poem,  the  symbol  and  the  things  sym- 
bolized cannot  be  perfectly  fused ;  at  best  they 
can  only  have  a  closely  concentric,  but  always 
separate,  discussion.  But,  unquestionabty,  it 
was  more  in  accord  with  contemporary  notions 
to  take  a  mass  of  events  as  a  symbol  rather 
than  a  single  person ;  and  the  resulting  extra- 
ordinary gain  of  novelty  and  originality  may  very 
well  compensate  for  some  loss  of  artistic  per- 
fection. Moreover,  Hardy's  wonderful  sense  of 
form  achieves  such  a  finely  concentric  shaping 
of  his  human  and  superhuman  material,  that  at 
the  end  of  the  poem  each  has  become  formally, 
if  not  substantially,  merged  into  the  other. 

This  seems  the  place  to  consider  briefly  two 
more  general  accusations  which  have  been 
brought  against  The  Dynasts.  The  first  is 
merely  theoretical.  The  poem  is  in  the  form 
of  a  play ;  but  it  is  not  for  the  stage.  The 
belief  that  this  statement  is  a  paradox  is  prob- 

192 


THE   DYNASTS 

ably  derived  from  Wagner.  It  is  curious  that 
a  musician,  who  proved  his  notion  of  dramatic 
poetry  to  be  a  shapeless  hullabaloo,  and  his 
notion  of  stage-setting  to  be  the  grossest 
Philistinism,  should  be  taken  for  an  authority 
in  the  aesthetics  of  drama.  Yet  Wagner's 
aesthetic  speculation  often  has  a  stimulating 
quality.  It  is,  however,  apt  to  fly  off  into 
theoretical  vapouring,  of  which  his  contention, 
that  dramatic  writing  must  always  be  meant 
for  stage  performance,  is  a  type.  His  prestige 
has  undoubtedly  gained  for  this  idea  a  good 
deal  of  support  of  a  frivolous  kind ;  Hardy 
himself  has  thought  it  worth  while  to  notice  in 
his  Preface  the  resulting  objection  to  The 
Dynasts.  The  question,  as  he  properly  observes, 
"  seems  to  be  an  unimportant  matter  of  ter- 
minology." And,  it  might  be  added,  that  to 
condemn  a  drama  as  art  because  it  is  not  meant 
for  the  stage,  is  to  ignore  astonishingly  the 
actual  facts  of  artistic  experience.  It  is  to  ignore 
the  fact  that  man  can  read.  For,  through  being 
able  to  read,  he  has  added  to  himself  a  special 
faculty  for  visualization  ;  and  the  man  for  artistic 
theory  to  consider  nowadays  is  a  man  possess- 
ing this  faculty  and  giving  it  aesthetic  exercise. 
Poetry  was  instant  to  take  advantage  of  the 
faculty  as  soon  as  it  appeared ;  and  there  can 
be  no  real  reason  why  dramatic  poetry  should 
N  193 


THOMAS   HARDY 

be  excluded  from  an  advantage  derived  from 
something  which  is  now  an  integral  part  of 
human  nature.  The  spoken  word  must  always 
remain  the  prime  material  of  poetry ;  the  thing 
is,  that  the  poet  can  trust  a  cultivated  reader  to 
supply  mentally  the  spoken  word  to  the  written. 
And  when  it  comes  to  the  action  of  drama, 
obviously  this  visualizing  faculty,  due  to  the 
habit  of  reading,  can  do  things  quite  beyond  the 
range  of  stage  performance.  It  enables  Hardy 
to  show  his  reader  the  whole  of  Europe  at  one 
view,  "  as  a  prone  and  emaciated  figure,  the 
Alps  shaping  like  a  backbone,  and  the  branching 
mountain  chains  like  ribs,  the  peninsular  plateau 
of  Spain  forming  a  head  "  ;  to  show  also  "  the 
peoples  "  of  this  Europe,  "  distressed  by  events 
which  they  did  not  cause,  writhing,  crawling, 
heaving  and  vibrating  in  their  various  cities 
and  nationalities " ;  and  then  to  fill  the  scene 
with  "  a  new  and  penetrating  light,  endowing 
men  and  things  with  a  seeming  transparency," 
an  anatomy  which  reveals  "  all  humanity  and 
vitalized  matter"  as  a  single  organism  urged 
by  the  primal  impulse.  Why  should  this  be 
improper  in  art  ?  W  hy  should  the  great  formal 
advantages  of  dramatic  shape  be  confined  to 
plays  capable  of  being  staged  ?  The  matter, 
perhaps,  need  not  be  considered  further.  But 
it  may  be  remarked,  that  when  we  read  "  Pro- 

194 


THE   DYNASTS 

metheus  Bound,"  and  when  we  read  The 
Dynasts,  our  brains  work  in  precisely  the 
same  way  ;  the  fact  that  "  Prometheus  Bound  " 
was  originally  a  stage-play  is,  artistically,  no 
concern  of  ours  whatever.  Yet  the  theorist 
who  condemns  The  Dynasts  would  never  think 
of  passing  the  same  sentence  on  "  Prometheus 
Bound "  merely  because  the  latter  has  been 
staged.  That  sufficiently  shows  the  absurdity 
of  this  theory.  It  is  not  its  fitness  for  the 
stage  which  makes  drama  good  ;  but  it  is  the 
presence  in  it  of  certain  formal  virtues  which 
makes  drama  good  for  the  stage  or  good  for 
reading,  or  good  for  both.  That  a  play  on  the 
stage  may  be  more  impressive  than  a  play  in  an 
arm-chair,  is  another  matter  altogether ;  but 
that  does  not  mean  at  all,  that  the  visualizing 
faculty  of  literate  mankind  should  not  possess 
its  own  kind  of  drama. 

A  thing,  however,  which  may  be  more 
seriously  objected  to  The  Dynasts  is  that 
it  preserves  unnecessarily  a  convention  which 
belongs  merely  to  the  writing  down  of  stage- 
plays — the  practice  of  putting  dialogue  in  verse, 
direction  in  prose.  Strictly,  drama,  whether  on 
the  stage  or  in  the  arm-chair,  consists  in  per- 
formance. The  performance  of  a  stage-play  is 
made  up  of  spoken  words  and  visible  action ; 
but  since  action  cannot  be  written  down,  the 

195 


THOMAS   HARDY 

poet  gives  a  few  notes  in  prose  roughly  to  indi- 
cate what  he  designs.  But  in  a  play  intended 
solely  for  mental  performance,  there  seems  no 
reason  why  this  convenience  should  persist. 
The  written  poetry  of  the  dialogue  has  to  pro- 
voke the  mental  performance  of  spoken  poetry  ; 
which,  again,  is  only  a  means  of  conveying  the 
characters  and  feelings  of  the  persons.  But  if 
poetry  is  on  the  whole  a  more  potent  means 
of  doing  this  than  prose,  why  not  employ  it 
also  for  the  stage-directions  ?  These  have  to 
provoke  a  mental  performance  of  the  action ; 
and  surely  for  this,  as  for  dialogue,  the  most 
efficient  medium  would  be  poetry ;  especially 
when  the  directions  are  as  elaborate  and  signifi- 
cant as  those  of  The  Dynasts.  The  poem  in 
scope  and  substance  takes  notable  advantage 
of  the  freedom  possible  in  purely  mental  drama  ; 
but  it  has  not  tested  to  the  full  the  capabilities 
of  this  kind  of  literature.  That  remains  to  be 
done,  by  putting  the  whole  of  it — dialogue, 
action  and  setting — into  poetry. 

But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  prose  directions 
of  The  Dynasts  are  just  as  vivid  and  provoca- 
tive as  the  poetry.  This  leads  to  the  second 
general  objection  to  the  poem — to  the  quality, 
namely,  of  its  verbal  poetry.  To  the  discussion 
of  Hardy's  verse  in  the  last  chapter,  little  need 
here  be  added.     The   Dynasts  is   not  a  poem 

196 


THE   DYNASTS 

to  be  read  for  beautiful  or  imaginative  phrasing. 
It  is  in  the  thing  as  a  whole  that  its  poetry  con- 
sists ;  the  splendid  formal  mastery  which  holds 
the  three  parts  in  one  firm  unity  carries  up  fine 
prose  and  indifferent  verse  alike  into  something 
superior  to  themselves.  But  apart  from  the 
share  every  line  has  in  the  cumulative  poetic 
effect  of  the  whole,  there  is  not  much  to  be  said 
for  the  verse  of  The  Dynasts.  The  metre 
does  certainly  add  energy  to  the  language ;  but 
the  movement  of  the  blank-verse  on  the  whole 
is  not  work  that  would  be  tolerated  by  a  poet 
who  had  studied  his  craft  as  a  painter  studies 
his.  The  choruses  show  much  ingenuity  of 
stanza-formation  without  as  a  rule  achieving 
any  beautiful  music  ;  though  certainly  the  ironic 
choruses  frequently  go  to  a  tune  that  wonder- 
fully renders  a  gibing  cynicism.  The  diction 
has  some  fine  touches  of  such  athletic  concision 
as  this : 

He's  scarcely  old, 
Dear  lady.     True,  deeds  densely  crowd  in  him  ; 
Turn  months  to  years  in  calendaring  his  span ; 
Yet  by  Time's  common  clockwork  he's  but  young. 

That  is  admirable  phrasing.  But  the  reader  has 
to  endure  a  good  deal  of  this  sort  of  thing  : 

Nordmann  has  fallen,  and  Veczay  :  Hesse  Homberg, 
Warteachben,  Muger — almost  all  our  best — 
Bleed  more  or  less  profusely  ! 

197 


THOMAS   HARDY 

There  are,  however,  a  few  moments  of  splen- 
did language  in  the  poem ;  in  particular,  the 
magnificent  Chorus  of  the  Years,  anticipating 
Waterloo,  at  the  end  of  Act  VI  of  Part  III. 
There  is  an  indescribable  solemnity  in  this 
chorus,  prophesying  the  effects  of  warfare  on 
the  harmless,  insignificant  inhabitants  of  the 
battlefield — coneys,  moles,  hedgehogs,  larks, 
snails,  worms,  butterflies — coming  as  it  does 
between  the  furious  human  perturbations  of 
Ligny  and  Quatre  Bras,  and  the  inevitable 
climax  of  the  whole  tragedy,  Waterloo.  Just 
as  the  violent  business  of  the  human  action 
seems  almost  getting  beyond  the  control  of  its 
symbolic  purpose,  there  comes  this  chorus,  not 
minimizing,  but  enlarging,  the  threatening  enor- 
mity of  the  climax  by  its  catalogue  of  minute 
catastrophes ;  to  the  impassive  spirits  of  the 
years,  life  is  a  web  of  such  single  weaving  that 
the  crushing  of  the  tunnelled  mole  under  the 
cannon-wheels  is  of  the  same  account  as  the 
sabring  of  the  gunner  ;  it  is  all  part  of  the  same 
eternal,  relentless,  useless  purpose ;  the  endless 
tragedy  which  the  coming  battle  has  to  sym- 
bolize is  not  humanity's,  but  vitality's.  The 
short  chorus  suffices  to  bring  the  perilous  excite- 
ment of  the  chronicle  back  into  symbolic  con- 
trol ;  it  is  a  notable  instance  of  Hardy's  formal 
power,  as  well  as  of  the  faculty  which  proves 

198 


THE   DYNASTS 

him  a  great  visionary  poet,  the  faculty  of  giving 
to  imagination  a  fiercer  reality  than  the  actual 
world.  And  here,  and  in  a  few  other  passages, 
the  language  is  equal  to  the  visionary  grandeur 
of  the  whole  poem. 

But,  once  more,  it  is  the  quality  of  the  poem 
as  a  whole  that  gives  The  Dynasts  its  com- 
manding station  in  modern  literature.  The 
double  drama  is  thoroughly  organized  into 
unity ;  but  in  order  to  effect  any  summation 
of  the  poem's  whole  quality,  we  must  first 
attend  to  the  outer  circle  of  drama,  to  the 
phantoms.  These  spectres,  to  whom  the  drama 
of  human  events  is  presented  as  a  symbolic 
school  for  their  affections,  beliefs,  and  general 
attitude  to  existence,  are  themselves  dramatic 
formations  of  man's  mind,  or  rather  of  man's 
modern  consciousness  of  the  world.  The  middle 
place  of  this  phantom  drama  is  held  by  the 
Ancient  Spirit  of  the  Years  and  his  train  of 
choral  attendants.  He  has  the  voicing  of  the 
profound  essential  in  man's  latter-day  concep- 
tion of  the  universe ;  he  is  the  consciousness  of 
monism,  of  the  single  urgency  driving  all  the 
manifold  shows  of  being.  To  him,  too,  belongs 
insistence  on  the  necessary  consequence  of  strict 
monism ;  namely,  that  the  huge,  boundless  tur- 
bulence of  the  world  can  effect  nothing  outside 
itself ;  it  can  have  no  final  result,  for  this  would 

199 


THOMAS   HARDY 

be  something  that  is  not  the  existing  world.  It 
would  be  an  addition  to  existence,  and  a  strictly 
monistic  world  can  never  do  anything  but 
simply  go  on  being  the  world ;  its  turbulence 
is  for  nothing  but  to  be  turbulent.  In  modern 
poetry  this  conception  of  the  final  uselessness  of 
existence  (except  for  what  it  can  make  of  itself 
— truly  an  important  exception),  has  its  first 
clear  expression  in  Leopardi,1  though  Lucretius, 
that  prophet  of  modern  thought,  all  but  ex- 
presses it.  In  The  Dynasts  it  is  the  basis  of  the 
whole  matter.    The  play  begins  with  the  idea  : 

It  works  unconsciously,  as  heretofore. 
Eternal  artistries  in  circumstance, 
Whose  patterns,  wrought  by  rapt  aesthetic  rote, 
Seem  in  themselves  its  single  listless  aim, 
And  not  their  consequence  ; 

and  at  the  end  of  the  whole  vast  business,  the 
Years  can  but  return  to  the  fundamental  scep- 
ticism. What  is  the  use,  the  good,  of  it  all? 
It  is  still  "  indovinar  non  so  "  : 

O  Immanence,  that  reasonest  not 
In  putting  forth  all  things  begot, 
Thou  build'st  Thy  house  in  space— for  what  ? 

1  Poi  di  tanto  adoprar,  di  tanti  moti 
d'ogni  celeste,  ogni  terrena  cosa, 
girando  senza  posa, 

per  tornar  serapre  la  donde  son  mosse  ; 
uso  alcuno,  alcun  frutto 
indovinar  non  so. 

The   sentiment  might   do    for   the   motto   of    Hardy's   idea  of 
tragedy.     It  is  not  inappropriate  to  ohserve  that  the  notion  is  not, 

200 


THE   DYNASTS 

But  man's  consciousness  of  his  world  can 
never  be  simply  an  intellectual  failure  to  find 
any  ultimate  significance  in  existence.  Accord- 
ingly, the  phantom  Spirit  of  the  Years  and  his 
attendants  are  flanked  on  either  hand  by  two 
other  groups,  the  Pities  and  the  Ironies.  For 
the  Spirit  of  the  Years,  the  world  simply  exists 
in  its  own  unalterable  nature ;  its  immense 
processes  go  on  for  ever  without  any  reference 
to  supposed  good  or  bad.  He  is  a  sublime 
intellectual  apprehension,  neither  liking  nor  dis- 
liking. But  the  Pities  and  the  Ironies  are  not 
intellectual,  but  emotional ;  they  are  man's  pro- 
found, inescapable  desires  for  some  sort  of 
significance,  or  purpose,  in  the  world.  They 
are  the  Optimists  and  the  Pessimists.  But 
note  that  their  optimism  and  pessimism  are 
direct  reactions  from,  not  facile  accompani- 
ments of,  their  emotional  attitudes  to  the 
spectacle  of  existence.  The  Pities  find  the  show 
a  horrifying  tragedy ;  so  horrifying  that  they 
conclude  there  must  be  some  kind  of  good  at 
the  end  of  it  all.  The  Ironies,  on  the  other 
hand,  take  existence  as  an  enjoyable  comedy ; 
but  they  can  only  do  so  by  enjoying  the  per- 
fection of  the  malice  which  they  suppose  is  at 
the  bottom  of  the  world's  affairs.     The  Pities' 

in  itself,  pessimism.     Pessimism  is  not  the  denial  of  significance, 
but  the  assertion  of  evil  significance. 

201 


THOMAS   HARDY 

belief  that  a  good  must  somehow  result  from 
such  a  dreadful  business  as  existence,  is  only 
the  natural  desire  to  escape  from  reality  into  the 
shelter  of  an  ideal,  though  it  be  one  "  pinnacled 
dim  in  the  intense  inane."  But  the  delighted 
pessimism  of  the  Ironies  may  seem  fantastic. 
It  is  not  that  really,  however  ;  nothing  is  more 
certain  psychologically,  than  man's  perversely 
pleasurable  excitement  by  what  goes  counter 
to  his  notions  of  rightness.  To  enjoy  the 
worldly  spectacle  because  it  seems  managed  by 
a  purpose  of  deliberate  cruelty,  is  the  sublima- 
tion of  this  perversity.  The  queer  complexity 
of  modern  consciousness  could  not  be  better 
exhibited  than  in  these  spirits  of  tragic  optimism 
and  amused  pessimism. 

There  are  other  phantoms  in  the  supernatural 
drama ;  but  it  is  these  three  groups,  the  Years, 
the  Pities,  and  the  Ironies,  that  supply  the 
drama  with  its  action.  The  action  is  of  the 
simplest  kind ;  but  very  important  for  the 
poem's  meaning.  Neither  Pities  nor  Ironies  can 
understand  the  purely  intellectual,  one  might 
say  scientific,  interest  in  the  world  which  is  all 
the  Spirit  of  the  Years,  unmoved  by  any  feeling, 
allows  himself.  It  is  arranged,  therefore,  that 
the  whole  family  of  spectres  shall  watch  the 
affairs  of  earth  for  a  while,  the  Pities  expressly 
hinting  that  a  close  view  of  suffering  humanity 

202 


THE   DYNASTS 

(Napoleon  being  in  his  fullest  power)  will  com- 
pel the  Spirit  of  the  Years  to  adopt  their 
sentiments ;  the  Ironies  falling  in  with  the 
scheme,  and  by  their  subsequent  remarks  show- 
ing that  they  too  believe  the  Spirit  of  the  Years 
must  at  last  forsake  his  detachment  and  enjoy 
the  comedy  of  infinite  malice.  "  Old  Years,"  as 
the  Ironies  sometimes  call  him,  consents  to  sit 
out  an  act  or  two  of  the  human  drama, 
suggesting,  however,  that  he  already  knows  the 
plot,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  moved  to  pity  or 
irony  by  it.  But  before  the  play  begins,  he 
reveals,  by  a  supernatural  light  which  dissolves 
material  opacity,  the  spiritual  anatomy  of 
earthly  life ;  the  exhibition  is  repeated  several 
times  later  on,  always  with  the  same  purpose. 
Throughout  the  seething  complexity  of  human 
passion  and  action  run  innumerably  the  fine 
impulses  of  the  single,  original  urgency,  like 
nerves  charged  with  currents  of  will.  Nothing 
human,  nothing  whatever,  moves  of  itself, 
but  everything  merely  accepts  the  irresistible 
commands  of  primal  energy,  which  is  imagined 
as  a  thing  in  the  nature  of  Will — the  Immanent 
Will.  Every  existing  thing,  in  fact,  not  merely 
obeys  the  Will,  but  is  actually  part  of  the  Will  J  <  JfJL*' 
itself,  which  exists  forever  in  the  sum  of  its 
parts,  and  forever  "  overrides  its  parts."  And 
as  the  action  proceeds,  it  becomes  evident  that 

203 


THOMAS    HARDY 

the  Will  has  no  object  except  to  go  on  willing. 
But  neither  Pities  nor  Ironies  accept  this.  They 
continue  to  suggest  to  the  Spirit  of  the  Years 
that  this  or  that  bears  them  out,  is  tragic  or 
comic,  must  be  condemned  or  applauded,  shows 
signs  of  eventual  good  or  continual  malignity. 
To  all  these  suggestions  the  Spirit  of  the  Years 
answers  by  placidly  demonstrating  their  absurd- 
ity. The  purpose  of  existence  is  neither  good 
nor  bad,  but  simply  to  exist.  There  is  nothing 
more  to  be  made  of  it.  He  allows  the  spirits  to 
interfere  in  the  drama  of  humanity  if  they  choose, 
to  speak  to  the  characters  in  warning  or  tempta- 
tion :  "  Speak  if  thou  wilt  whose  speech  nor 
mars  nor  mends." a  He  has  been  so  long  watch- 
ing the  unalterable  working  of  the  "  unrelaxing 
Will"  that  he  has  got  beyond  liking  it  or 
disliking ;  he  can  only  observe.  Nay,  they 
themselves,  the  phantom  intelligences,  are  as 
firmly  in  the  power  of  the  Will  as  the  men  they 
watch ;  they  can  only  observe,  pity,  or  sneer  as 
the  Will  allows  them.  Except  for  the  universal 
fatalism,  there  is  no  conceivable  existence.  But 
as  the  Spirit  of  the  Years  is  unchanged  by  the 
weaker  spirits,  so  these  are  unchanged  by  their 
stern  monitor  ;  they  are  Pities  and  Ironies  to  the 

1  But  sometimes,  as  will  be  noticed  shortly,  he  forgets  himself,  and 
credits  their  interference  with  real  effect.  After  all,  this  Spirit  is  a 
figure  in  the  human  likeness. 

204 


THE   DYNASTS 

end.  The  Pities  even  relieve  their  feelings  by 
chanting,  when  the  play  is  all  over,  a  hymn,  not 
to  the  Will  as  it  evidently  is,  but  to  the  Will  as 
they  still  think  it  ought  to  be  ;  this  is  idealism  ! 

But  unquestionably,  the  artistic  effect  of  the 
whole  poem  is  that  which  the  Spirit  of  the 
Years  recommends  to  his  underlings.  For  this 
Spirit  is  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  modern 
idea  of  the  world  ;  he  is  the  ruling  consciousness 
of  the  time ;  and  the  business  of  the  poem  has 
been,  in  spite  of  the  double  revolt  of  feeling  of 
the  Pities  and  the  Ironies,  to  set  forth  at  large 
his  intellectual  apprehension  of  universal  exist- 
ence. It  is  the  biggest,  the  most  consistent  and 
deliberate  exhibition  of  fatalism  in  literature. 
The  enormous  tormented  spectacle  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars  has  been  represented,  not  as 
a  complex  of  human  purpose  governed  by  a 
presiding  fate,  but  as  a  system  where  there  is 
neither  being  nor  doing  which  is  not  fate  itself. 
No  purpose,  great  or  small,  moves  through  the 
mass  of  human  event,  except  the  single  purpose 
which  drives  existence  onward.  Nothing  what- 
ever has  been,  or  ever  could  have  been,  attained, 
but  the  continued  action  of  the  Primal  Will. 
The  huge  process  of  human  agony  and  triumph 
has  no  function  in  itself ;  it  is  only  the  eternal 
Will  uselessly  uttering  existence.  It  is  true 
that  there  appear  now  and  then  some  obscure 

205 


THOMAS   HARDY 

hints  that  the  existence  caused  by  the  Will  may 
have  some  reacting  result  in  the  Will  itself; 
in  effect,  that  it  may  learn  from  experience,  for, 
strictly,  it  is  only  its  own  experience  that  the 
Will  can  ever  cause.  Man  being  part  of  the 
Will,  his  sense  of  the  tragic  pains  of  being  may 
somehow  induce  the  Will  to  be  not  utterly 
indifferent  to  the  pain  it  causes  in  its  creatures. 
The  last  words  of  the  poem  express  this ;  the 
Pities  hope,  and  even  believe,  that  the  Will  may 
at  last  become  infected  by  their  sentiments. 
But  this  comfortable  tag,  this  giving  the  last 
word  to  the  Pities  and  their  baseless  idealism, 
has  a  very  slight  effect  compared  with  the  pur- 
port of  the  whole  poem. 

Thus  extracted,  the  conception  of  a  world  so 
rigidly  monistic  seems  too  simple  to  be  profit- 
able either  to  art  or  philosophy.  But  the  im- 
mensity and  variety  of  its  working  out  in  the 
poem  very  easily  justify  the  conception  here. 
In  the  common  business  of  thought  it  may  be 
best  to  neglect  an  idea  of  such  paralysing  sim- 
plicity ;  but  in  The  Dynasts  it  appears  as  the 
one  thing  to  which  everything  else  must  some- 
how be  related ;  there,  without  doubt,  it  is  a 
most  formidably  impressive  reality.  The  whole 
poem  is  designed  to  aggrandize  the  conception. 
Europe  appears  as  "  a  crinkled  ground  " ;  armies 
look  like  caterpillars ;  Napoleon  an  insect  on  a 

206 


THE   DYNASTS 

leaf.  Material  and  spiritual  detail  is  persistently 
belittled,  in  order  that  the  whole  may  appear 
greater.  Earth  is  only  a  microscopically  ver- 
minous mote  among  "  the  systems  of  the  suns," 
and  their  "  many-mortaled  planet  train  " :  the  as- 
sertion is  not  meant  philosophically,  but  aestheti- 
cally, to  enlarge  the  vastness  of  background  to 
human  endeavour,  a  background  rilled  with  in- 
finite manifestations  of  one  unalterable  fatalism. 
But  now  we  are  come  to  the  real  artistic  sig- 
nificance of  The  Dynasts.  I  have  previously 
said  that  this  poem  is  a  great  summation  of  the 
significance  of  the  novels ;  it  deals  directly  with 
what  they  powerfully  suggest.  The  thing  is, 
however,  that  The  Dynasts  does  not  make 
explicit  that  which  is  implicit  in  the  novels,  by 
merely  stating  at  large  a  philosophic  idea  of 
existence  exemplified  in  a  huge  tragedy.  The 
idea  itself,  for  all  its  explicit  appearance,  is  mas- 
tered by  the  condition  of  art ;  it  is  presented, 
that  is  to  say,  not  as  a  philosophic  idea,  but  as 
a  tragic  idea  of  existence.  Monism  is  a  notion 
sufficiently  familiar  to  anyone  nowadays ;  we 
are  not  here  concerned  with  its  claims  to  be  con- 
sidered as  a  "truth,"  only  with  the  fact  that 
it  governs  the  modern  consciousness  of  man's 
temporal  destiny.  But  in  art  an  idea  of  the 
world  must  be  treated  exactly  in  the  same  way 
as  the  appearance  of  the  world ;  it  must  be  con- 

207 


THOMAS    HARDY 

trolled  into  some  significantly  acceptable  shape. 
For,  to  revert  to  the  argument  used  in  the 
second  chapter,  an  idea  of  the  world,  like 
appearance  of  the  world,  is  the  work  of  the  for- 
mative power  or  desire  inherent  in  mind,  uttered 
in  the  one  through  intellect,  in  the  other  through 
sense  ;  but  in  both  the  utterance  is  imperfect. 
The  function  of  art  is  to  perfect  the  utterance 
of  this  formative  principle  in  man,  to  give  its 
power  complete  achievement,  to  satisfy  its  desire. 
A  grievous  story  will  become  tragedy,  and  there- 
fore profoundly  enjoyable,  if  its  embodiment  be 
so  managed  by  art  as  to  give  that  sense  of  order, 
coherence,  significance — in  fact,  of  perfect  shape- 
liness— -which  is  the  triumph  of  man's  formative 
desire.  The  problem  is  precisely  similar  for  an 
idea.  The  monism  of  The  Dynasts,  extracted 
and  nakedly  stated,  is  assuredly  not  an  enjoyable 
idea ;  just  as  the  bare  plot  of  a  tragedy  is  not 
likely  to  be  enjoyable.  What  the  poem,  then, 
has  to  do  is  to  effect  some  artistic  formation 
(which  will  probably  be  felt  as  ethical  significance) 
of  the  relations  between  man's  perceived  ex- 
perience and  the  cosmic  conception  of  monism. 
The  Pities  and  the  Ironies  both  represent  in- 
effectual attempts  to  fashion  into  significance 
the  processes  of  a  monistic  universe.  Some 
formation  as  definite  as  theirs,  but  less  scholasti- 
cally  ethical,  is  required ;  and  to  supply  their 

208 


THE   DYNASTS 

failure  is,  perhaps,  the  main  business  of  the  poem 
— certainly  the  most  notable  thing  in  it,  except 
the  excitements  of  the  chronicle  history.  The 
primary,  single  energy  of  the  monistic  universe 
is  conceived  as  a  Will,  an  Immanent  Will.  The 
notion  is  so  obvious  nowadays,  that  we  are  apt 
to  forget  that  this  is  itself  an  aesthetic  formation 
of  an  idea  into  a  shape  of  thought  familiar  to 
consciousness,  and  so  easily  appreciated.  But 
the  next  thing  required  is  to  give  familiar,  appre- 
ciable, definite  form  to  the  relations  between 
human  experience  and  this  ultimate  Will ;  in 
a  word,  to  explain — but  artistically  to  explain — 
the  nature  of  the  Will.  It  is  important  to  in- 
sist that  the  Will  supposed  throughout  The 
Dynasts  is  not  a  philosophic,  but  a  tragic,  meta- 
physic.  All  the  innumerable  processes  whereby 
this  Immanent  Will  of  Hardy's  utters  and 
articulates  existence,  it  has  long  since  got  by 
heart ;  it  is  concerned  with  nothing  but  this 
habit  of  multitudinously  existing.  Whether 
the  habit  began  in  consciousness  or  not,  we  may 
think  as  we  like ;  as  things  are  now,  the  habit 
is  grown  to  such  perfect  precision  that  it  has 
lulled  the  Will  into  a  drowse,  wherein  nothing 
is  active  but  the  habit  itself.  The  joys  and 
agonies  of  the  existence  it  causes  are  nothing 
to  it ;  the  mere  habit  of  causing  existence  is 
everything.  There  is  neither  good  nor  bad  pur- 
o  209 


THOMAS    HARDY 

pose  in  the  universe  ;  it  just  goes  on  and  on  in 
a  sublime  routine — "wrought  by  rapt  aesthetic 
rote  " — for  no  other  purpose  than  to  keep  the 
routine  going  on  and  on. 

As  a  philosophy  of  existence,  it  would  be 
very  easy  to  say  that  this  will  not  do.  As  a 
tragedy  of  existence,  it  is  surely  magnificent,  a 
profoundly  enjoyable  shapeliness  of  idea,  nobly 
familiar  to  the  desires  of  consciousness.  The 
formation  is  not  absolutely  uniform  throughout 
the  poem ;  but  the  same  kind  of  shape  is  kept 
consistently  in  all  its  variations.  Here  are  some 
of  its  most  admirable  formations  : 

So  the  Will  heaves  through  space,  and  moulds  the  times, 
With  mortals  for  Its  fingers  !     We  shall  see 
Again  men's  passions,  virtues,  visions,  crimes, 

Obey  resistlessly 
The  purposive,  unmotived,  dominant  Thing 
Which  sways  in  brooding  dark  their  wayfaring  ! 

"  Moulds  the  times  with  mortals  for  its  fingers  ! " 
This  is  great  modern  poetry ;  artistic  formation 
of  humanity  related  with  our  ultimate  concep- 
tion. Even  visions  "  obey  resistlessly  "  ;  but 
that  which  they  obey  is  "  unmotived "  though 
"purposive."  But  of  subtler  thought  is  the 
following  account  of  "in-brooding  Will"  with 
its  "  sealed  cognition  "  : 

In  that  immense  unweeting  Mind  is  shown 

One  far  above  foretliinking  ;  purposive 

Yet  superconscious  ;  a  Clairvoyancy 

That  knows  not  what  it  knows,  yet  works  therewith. 

210 


THE   DYNASTS 

That  gives  to  the  Will  the  state  of  ecstasy — and 
the  state  has  seldom  been  better  described.  The 
passage  is  the  finest  of  the  more  abstract  forma- 
tions of  the  Will,  unless  we  except  the  splendid 
phrasing  of: 

The  all-urging  Will,  raptly  magnipotent. 

Of  the  versions  of  the  Will  in  more  concrete 
imagery,  the  following  will  serve  as  specimens. 
It  is  habitual  handicraft : 

like  a  knitter  drowsed, 
Whose  fingers  play  in  skilled  tinmindfulness, 
The  Will  has  woven  with  an  absent  heed 
Since  life  first  was  ;  and  ever  will  so  weave. 

A  magic  lantern : 

So  let  him  [Napoleon]  speak,  the  while  we  clearly  sight  him 
Moved  like  a  figure  on  a  lantern-slide. 
Which,  much  amazing  uninitiate  eyes, 
The  all-compelling  crystal  pane  but  drags 
Whither  the  showman  wills. 

The  Spirit  Ironic  thinks  that : 

The  deft  manipulator  of  the  slide 
Might  smile  at  his  own  art ; 

but  the  Chorus  of  Years  replies  : 

Ah,  no  :  ah,  no  ! 
It  is  impassible  as  glacial  snow. 

Within  the  Great  Unshaken 

These  painted  shapes  awaken 
A  lesser  thrill  than  doth  the  gentle  lave 
Of  yonder  bank  by  Danube's  wandering  wave 
Within  the  Schwarzwald  heights  that  give  it  flow  ! 

211 


THOMAS   HARDY 

Again,  in  the  magnificent  Ironic  Chorus  over 
Austerlitz,  the  Universe  is  a  fermentation,  the 
Will  its  chemical  energy : 

Stand  ye  apostrophizing  that 

Which,  working  all,  works  but  thereat 

Like  some  sublime  fermenting  vat 

Heaving  throughout  its  vast  content 
With  strenuously  transmutive  bent 
Though  of  its  aim  unsentient  ? 

These  will  suffice  to  show  the  character  of 
the  tragic  metaphysic  to  which  monism  has 
been  reduced.  But  there  is  one  matter  which 
refuses  to  accept  tragic  formation,  and  appears 
as  mere  horror.     It  is  pain  : 

the  intolerable  antilogy 
Of  making  figments  feel. 

This  is  the  great  injustice;  and  one  which, 
perhaps,  is  incapable  of  artistic  control.  The 
Pities  complain  of  it  from  time  to  time  ;  they 
cannot  endure  that  men,  the  puppets  jerked  in 
the  Will's  heedless  drama,  should  "  feel,  and 
puppetry  remain  "  ;  agony  should  give  them  the 
right  to  independent  being,  or  should  never 
have  been  devised.  This  is  naturally  rebuked 
by  the  Spirit  of  the  Years.  Pain  was  not 
devised  ;  it  just  unhappily  occurred.  But  his 
explanation,  which  invokes  crude  accident, 
"  luckless  Chance,"  is  the  very  antithesis  of 
artistic  form ;  it  is  the  negation  of  form,   ad- 

212 


THE   DYNASTS 

mitted  disorder,  therefore  not  tragic.  The 
matter  could  not  have  been  avoided ;  but  the 
poem  must  be  praised  for  but  rarely  touching 
the  "  intolerable  antilogy  "  of  human  pain. 

To  have  discussed  The  Dynasts  thus  far, 
with  only  the  most  general  allusions  to  its  his- 
torical drama,  will  doubtless  have  offended  the 
opinions  of  many  readers,  who  are  properly 
enthusiastic  for  the  splendid  qualities  of  the 
huge  chronicle  play.  Had  I  wished  merely  to 
give  myself  "the  noble  pleasure  of  praising," 
I  should  certainly  have  taken  the  easy  course 
of  admiring  the  poem  as  a  superbly  adequate 
exhibition  of  the  greatest  period  in  modern 
history.  But  I  wished  rather  to  appraise  the 
poem's  extraordinary  significance  in  contem- 
porary literature ;  and  it  is  more  in  the  outer 
circle  of  supernatural  commenting  drama,  than 
in  the  inner  Napoleonic  play,  that  this  signi- 
ficance is  to  be  found.  Indeed,  when  this  outer 
drama  is  understood,  the  symbolic  significance  of 
the  subservient  inner  drama  necessarily  follows. 
At  the  end  of  the  First  Part  there  occur  a  few 
lines  which  should  be  noted ;  for  they  are,  in 
effect,  a  glimpse  behind  the  scenes  of  the  play. 
A  chorus  of  spirits  sings  these  words  : 

Our  incorporeal  sense. 
Our  overseeings,  our  supernal  state, 
Our  readings  Why  and  Whence, 

213 


THOMAS    HARDY 

Are  but  the  flower  of  Man's  intelligence  ; 

And  that  but  an  unreckoned  incident 

Of  the  all-urging  Will,  raptly  magnipotent. 

Yes,  this  outer  drama  of  spirits  is  an  imagination 
of  man's  own  consciousness  watching  a  character- 
istic spectacle  of  worldly  event ;  watching  it,  ques- 
tioning it,  resenting  it  and  acquiescing,  and  with 
difficulty  and  conflict  deciding  how  much,  and 
what,  final  significance  there  must  be  in  it  for 
him  at  this  present  stage  of  his  growth.  Man 
looks  for  reality  as  one  looks  for  the  bottom  of  a 
lucid,  profound  water;  the  transparency  at  length, 
through  mere  depth,  becomes  opaque,  and  his 
eyes  never  find  the  bottom,  but  only  the  limit  of 
their  vision.  As  the  practice  of  existence  con- 
tinues, man  thinks  he  can  see  further  and  further 
into  the  depths  of  appearance ;  yet  his  vision 
only  pierces  the  transparent  appearances  to  come 
at  last  on  the  opaque  appearance.  But  until 
that  opacity  holds  vision  back,  there  is  some- 
thing in  man  which  will  not  be  satisfied  ;  and 
perhaps  the  opacity  comes  now  an  inch  or  two 
deeper  down  than  it  did  once.  This  craving 
vision  in  man,  that  will  never  be  done  with 
perfectly  proving  its  own  scope,  has  its  phantom 
embodiment  in  the  Spirit  of  the  Years  ;  it  is  for 
him  to  declare  the  depth  of  vision  which  the 
practice  of  time  has  given  to  man.  The  Pities 
and  the  Ironies  are  willing  to  stop  their  search 

214 


THE   DYNASTS 

when  appearance  becomes  gloomy ;  there  is 
always  in  man  their  scrupulous  enterprise,  ready 
to  hold  back  when  it  seems  convenient.  But 
also  there  is  always  an  unscrupulous  enterprise ; 
and  this  it  is  that  continues  from  age  to  age,  the 
Ancient  Spirit  of  the  Years.  He  will  not  stop  for 
darkness,  until  it  becomes  at  last  impenetrable ; 
and  he  forces  along  with  him  those  unwilling 
other  spirits  into  whatever  depth  of  exploration 
he  can  attain.  Thus,  in  the  outer  play  of  The 
Dynasts,  man's  present  vision  of  the  world  is 
dramatized ;  man  is  both  its  subject  and  its 
composer  ;  and  the  chronicle  play,  which,  though 
much  the  bulkier  of  the  two,  is  given  as  a  show 
for  the  persons  of  the  spiritual  play,  is  significant 
chiefly  by  what  it  elucidates  in  these  ideal 
spectators. — It  would  have  been  dangerous  for 
the  artistic  firmness  of  the  whole,  if  the  poem 
had  openly  confessed,  that  not  only  are  these 
seemingly  immortal  spirits  the  shapes  of  man's 
conscious  experience,  but  the  Immanent  Will 
itself,  their  continual  theme,  is  only  the  form 
man  himself  has  given  to  the  ultimate  appearance 
of  the  unsearchable  reality. 

The  two  circles  of  drama  are  not  geometrically 
struck.  They  touch  each  other  several  times. 
The  phantoms,  which  aesthetically  realize  the 
poem's  metaphysical  purport,  are  allowed  to 
interfere    in    the    human   action,    though   that 

215 


THOMAS    HARDY 

should  be  only  the  subject  of  their  gloss.  The 
effect  of  one  drama  presented  to  the  persons  of 
another  is,  at  each  interference,  momentarily 
lost ;  the  phantoms  become  the  regular  epical 
supernatural  machinery,  directing  the  course  of 
the  action.  Probably,  however,  there  is  consider- 
able advantage  in  not  too  strictly  maintaining  the 
arrangement  of  doubled  drama,  which  might 
look  too  much  of  an  artifice.  The  chronicle 
play  itself  decidedly  gains  by  these  interferences, 
in  acquiring  epical  proportions,  which  seem  to 
require,  however  large  the  human  affairs  may 
be,  some  clear  supposition  that  they  are  at  least 
capable  of  arousing  superhuman  interest  to 
something  more  than  contemplation.  So  the 
Earth  trembles  when  Maria  Louisa  consents  to 
the  match  with  Xapoleon,  and  the  shudder 
tumbles  down  and  breaks  a  portrait  of  Marie 
Antoinette  ;  for  the  spirit  of  the  Earth  excuses 
herself  thus : 

When  France  and  Austria  wed, 
My  echoes  are  men's  groans,  my  dews  are  red ; 
So  I  have  reason  for  a  passing  dread ! 

This  noticeably  adds  impressiveness  to  the 
action.  And  the  superhuman  interest  is  at 
times  more  actively  interfering  than  this ;  the 
spirits,  in  order,  at  a  favourable  moment,  to 
"  impress "  (their  own  word)  Villeneuve,  and 
keep  him  in  a  required  determination,  appear 

216 


THE   DYNASTS 

to  him  as  white  sea-birds,  perching  on  the 
stern-balcony  of  his  ship,  and  mysteriously 
watching  him  with  piercing  eyes.  Again,  they 
enter  into  assemblies  and  affect  the  action  by 
influencing  common  opinion,  spreading  dis- 
quieting rumours.  Yet  there  is  certainly  one 
difficulty  in  these  interferences.  The  economy 
of  the  poem  is  injured  by  them ;  for  in  a  poem 
so  persistently  elaborating  a  universal  necessity, 
how  can  they  be  anything  but  patently  super- 
fluous ?  The  action  cannot  go  otherwise  than 
it  does ;  human  and  superhuman  effort  can 
never  alter  it  or  make  its  course  more  certain, 
can  never  do  aught  but  carry  out  the  inevit- 
able. Yet  even  the  Spirit  of  the  Years  him- 
self, who  should  know  better,  urges  Villeneuve 
to  suicide.  The  phantoms,  like  the  humans, 
might  have  been  permitted  the  weakness  of 
thinking  to  influence  the  process  of  destiny ; 
but  their  interference,  though  slight  enough,  is 
apparently  of  real  effect  on  an  action  which  is 
used  to  symbolize  absolute  necessity  in  a  tumult 
of  events.  We  can  hardly  get  over  this  by 
supposing  that  the  necessity  works  by  means  of 
the  phantoms  in  such  cases  ;  since  the  phantoms 
themselves  are  but  abstractions  of  human  mind 
shaped  in  art. 

But  the  surrounding  drama  of  spirits  exercises 
on  the  chronicle  play  a  more  subtle  and  more 

217 


THOMAS    HARDY 

general  influence  than  these  interferences.  It 
is  most  easily  noticed  in  the  characterization. 
Those  studies  in  exciting  and  curious  psychology 
which  are  so  remarkable  in  the  novels  have 
no  place  in  The  Dynasts.  There  are  no 
sudden  surprising  revelations  of  individual  will 
in  the  poem ;  no  displayings  of  unsuspected 
capacity,  which  yet  confirm  the  shapeliness  of 
the  character.  It  is  not  that  this  sort  of  thing 
would  be  out  of  keeping  with  a  chronicle  action ; 
but  simply  that,  in  the  presence  of  the  super- 
natural drama,  it  would  be  artistically  incon- 
venient. For  each  figure  in  the  chronicle  play 
must  be  simultaneously  an  individual  will  and 
a  part  of  the  will  of  general  existence ;  the 
former  must  be  a  special  exhibition  of  the  latter. 
There  can  therefore  be  no  question  of  individual 
free  will ;  but  characters  can  only  reveal  them- 
selves in  conspicuous  psychology  when  they 
are  intensely  conscious  of  their  own  freedom. 
This  consciousness  would  not,  perhaps,  be  very 
troublesome  to  fatalistic  philosophy ;  but  in 
fatalistic  art,  any  noticeable  appearance  of  seem- 
ingly free  psychology  would  be  dangerous  to 
the  harmony.  It  was  therefore  wisely  excluded. 
Indeed,  the  characters  sometimes  deny  their 
own  freedom.     Thus,  Napoleon  : 

Some  force  within  me,  baffling  mine  intent, 
Harries  me  onward,  whether  I  will  or  no. 
My  star,  my  star  is  what's  to  blame — not  I. 
It  is  unswervable ! 

218 


THE   DYNASTS 

The  Spirit  of  the  Years  commends  him  for  this  : 

He  spoke  thus  at  the  Bridge  of  Lodi.     Strange, 
He's  of  the  few  in  Europe  who  discern 
The  working  of  the  Will. 

That  Napoleon  should  "  speak  thus  "  is  evidently 
convenient  for  the  symbolism  of  the  whole 
chronicle ;  and  it  is  moreover  not  out  of  tune 
with  his  character  in  history.  But  not  thus 
may  profoundly  psychological  drama  be  written. 
Similarly,  though  not  often  thus  overtly,  the 
main  symbolic  requirements  of  the  play  over- 
ride and  subdue  the  characterization  of  Pitt, 
Nelson,  Wellington,  and  the  other  chief  figures. 
But  there  is  no  reason  why  great  drama  should 
be  dependent  on  exquisite  psychology.  The 
Dynasts  is  peculiarly  able  to  dispense  with  it. 
The  persons  are  figured  in  vivid  and  character- 
istic outline,  their  psychology  is  a  matter  not 
of  delicate  modelling  and  shading,  but  of  firm, 
shapely  lineament.  And  that  is  all  we  require  ; 
for  the  drama  is  sufficiently  supplied  with  vitality 
from  its  amazing  wealth  of  varied  human 
material  and  the  splendid  resonant  process  of 
its  events. 

It  will  be  sufficient  to  review  very  briefly  the 
outstanding  merits  of  the  chronicle  play ;  they 
are  too  magnificently  obvious  to  need  any 
critical  labouring.  I  should  think  that  the 
average  cultured  person  in  England  will  hence- 

219 


THOMAS   HARDY 

forth  take  his  knowledge  of  Napoleonic  history 
chiefly  from  The  Dynasts,  just  as  his  knowledge 
of  English  mediaeval  history  comes  for  the  most 
part  from  Shakespeare's  chronicles.  The  his- 
torical foundations  of  The  Dynasts  are  said  to 
be  accurately  laid ;  it  is  evident,  at  any  rate, 
that  they  were  very  carefully  studied.  But  the 
hard  rigour  of  the  imagination  wherein  this 
history  is  displayed,  is  the  main  thing ;  the 
formidable  obscure  mass  of  events,  dissolved 
by  an  eager  mind,  has  been  thence  crystallized 
out  into  a  lucid  substance  of  clear,  true  struc- 
ture. Some  foreknowledge  of  the  period,  as 
the  preface  says,  is  assumed  in  the  reader ;  but 
a  very  little  will  do.  Choruses  of  rumours 
bridge  important  gaps  ;  and  the  others  are  easily 
jumped.  The  whole  great  story  goes  forward 
with  a  tremendous  momentum ;  and  also  with 
the  nicest  precision.  Battles  and  strategies, 
usually  so  troublesome  to  read  about,  are  as 
clear  as  statuary  groups  in  sunlight  here.  The 
tangled  policies  of  the  time  have  no  doubt  been 
somewhat  straightened  and  simplified ;  their 
motives,  subterfuges,  calculations,  and  person- 
alities have  certainly  been  woven  into  a  pattern 
which  the  reader  can  trace  from  start  to  finish 
without  being  baffled  by  its  twisting  and  swerv- 
ing and  doubling.  But  it  is  not  only  the  occur- 
rences of  Napoleonic  warfare  and  policy  which 

220 


THE   DYNASTS 

form  the  subject  of  The  Dynasts;  but  also 
the  whole  temper  of  the  period,  the  reaction  of 
European  society  to  those  gigantic,  rousing 
futilities.  Men  and  women  of  all  sorts  pass 
through  the  scenes,  royalties,  courtiers,  states- 
men, soldiers,  fashionables,  merchants,  business 
men  and  peasants  ;  all  preoccupied  with  the  one 
prevailing  enigma,  which  they  themselves  formu- 
late in  the  great  name  of  Napoleon,  but  which 
to  the  reader  appears  in  an  infinite  change  of 
formula,  in  the  guise  of  every  person  that 
comes  into  the  drama.  Its  free  expatiation 
through  the  whole  commonalty  of  human 
society  is  one  of  the  great  features  of  the  poem. 
Since  there  is  here  needed  not  so  much  psy- 
chology, as  the  drawing  of  characters  in  clear 
lineaments,  Hardy's  usual  difficulty  in  managing 
genteel  figures  does  not  show  itself.  The  drama 
is  terse  and  vivid,  whatever  kind  of  humanity 
it  employs.  The  greatness  of  Napoleon  could 
not  be  more  intensely  dramatized  than  in  that 
brief  but  eager  conversation  of  three  sovereigns, 
wherein,  after  brushing  aside  Austria's  claim  to 
be  the  real  defeater  of  Bonaparte,  the  rulers 
of  England,  Russia  and  Prussia  in  turn  claim 
this  distinction  for  their  own  countries  ;  four 
short  speeches  sum  up  the  character  of  France's 
tussle  with  Europe.  Still,  it  is  in  the  rustic 
scenes  that  the   dialogue   is    most  memorable ; 

221 


T  n  OM  \  s   ii  \  R  DY 

chiefly  because  here  Hardy  uses  thai  incom* 
parable  prose  which  he  has  fashioned  out  of  the 
Dorset  dialect  In  such  superbly  vigorous 
scenes  as  tli.it  of  the  beacon  i  Id  the  first 

part,  or  of  the  burning  in  the  third,  the 

talk  of  the  cheery,  pussled  rustics  more  bril- 
liantly portrays  the  bewildered  events  and 
relentless  destiny  of  the  tunc,  than  the  debates 
of  statesmen  ami  the  policies  of  longs.  It  is 
much  the  same  with  the  battles.  I  suppose 
reader  will  easily  forget  the  vivid  humanities  of 
Hardy *9  battles ;  thegi  rsonal  elements  in 

war  have  never  been  more  strongly  seised,  than 
in  Napoleon  and  his  marshals  throughout, 
Nelson  and  Captain  rlardyal  Trafalgar,  Kutu- 
soff  in  the  Russian   cam]  i  j  i 

staring  out  as  he  sits  in  a  heap  in  the  saddle**), 
Wei  m  the  Peninsula  and  at  Waterloo. 

Hut  (brapictuj  irthatalnv  with 

its  verisimilitude,  we   should    rather  rem*  mber 
that  grim  s,  -  qi    ()|  the  cellar  lull  of  d 
from  Sir  John   fcf<  •  m]  i  ••  quaint 

and    real    ronian  war."  as   tin    Spirit    Ironic 

says. 

\s  we  watch  the  immens*   spectacle  prot  i 
ingi  we  share  the  phantoms  vision;  here,  b 
easily  providing  us  with  faculti<  a  oi  superhuman 
in  ss  and  penetration,  th  lities  of 

the  poem  take  meat  advants  je  bom  its  structure 


TH K    DVN ASTS 

of  drama  within  drama.  The  watching  spirits, 
and  we  who  watch  the  spirits,  have  the  occasional 
priv:  _  already  noted,  of  discarding  the 
opacity  of  material  shows.  By  this  means,  at 
V'ittoria,  there  Is  exhibited  u  the  electric  state 
of  mind  "  in  the  opposing  soldieries,  the  vision 
u  resembling  as  a  whole  the  interior  of  a  be: 
brain  lit  by  phosphorescence  More-  usually,  it 
B  an  unnatural  scope  of  sense  that  ire  pos^ 
we  -  see  all  things  at  one  view."     We 

rk  to  th 
Y'Ai  architraves  of  sunbeam-smitten  cloud  ; 

and  land  and   sea   (all    50   far   beneath   OS,   that 

Maria  Louisas  progress  from  Vienna  to  Paris 
seems  M  a  file  of  ants  crawling  along  a  strip  of 
garden  matting,"  and  battle-ships  float  before  the 
wind  ••  like  preened  duck-feathers  across  a  pond." 
Hut  the  effect  of  these  enlarged  powers  is  not 
always  to  belittle  the  parts,  and  so  unify  the 
whole,  of  the  action.  Often  enough  they  won- 
derfully increase  the  irnpressiveness  of  the  human 
riess  ;  the  Russian  campaign,  seen  from  our 
balloon-like  height  of  vision,  is  an  unforgettable 
experience  for  imagination.  We  are  not  always 
in  these  altitudes  ;  but  the  phantoms,  when  they 
contract  their  senses  to  a  merely  human  range, 
have  a  wonderful  instinct  for  selective  perception, 
singling   out   just   those   features   of    the    scene 

228 


THOMAS   HARDY 

which  most  intensely  characterize  it  and  make  it 
unique.  Indeed,  all  the  visionary  part  of  The 
Dynasts  is  of  astonishing  quality,  possibly  the 
most  exciting  element  in  its  substance.  That  in 
a  poem  which,  as  Mr.  Oliver  Elton  says,  "  could 
only  be  in  verse,"  the  actual  vision  of  it  should, 
nevertheless,  be  almost  wholly  conveyed  in  prose, 
is  a  curious  anomaly.  But  this  has  been  already 
discussed ;  and,  as  it  turns  out,  we  certainly 
would  not  be  willing  to  change  the  prose  of 
Hardy's  descriptions  for  the  verse  of  his  dialogue. 
Here  is  the  cockpit  of  the  "  Victory  " : 

A  din  of  trampling  and  dragging  overhead,  which  is 
accompanied  by  a  continuous  ground-bass  roar  from  the 
guns  of  the  warring  fleets,  culminating  at  times  in  loud 
concussions.  The  wounded  are  lying  around  in  rows  for 
treatment,  some  groaning,  some  silently  dying,  some 
dead.  The  gloomy  atmosphere  of  the  low-beamed  deck 
is  pervaded  by  a  thick  haze  of  smoke,  powdered  wood, 
and  other  dust,  and  is  heavy  with  the  fumes  of  gun- 
powder and  candle-grease,  the  odour  of  drugs  and  cordials, 
and  the  smell  from  abdominal  wounds. 

Not  many  poets  could  better  that  for  precision 
and  selection. 

There  was  at  first,  it  appears,  some  difficulty 
in  finding  an  audience  for  this  extraordinary 
poem.  I  do  not  know  how  its  popularity  may 
stand  now ;  but  it  is  scarcely  to  be  supposed, 
that  a  thing  so  vivid  and  great  in  its  imagina- 

224 


THE   DYNASTS 

tion,  and,  for  anyone  at  all  conscious  of  the 
finer  issues  of  the  time,  so  charged  with  gravity 
and  significance,  can  long  miss  common  ac- 
knowledgment as  one  of  the  most  momentous 
achievements  of  modern  literature. 


WILLIAM   BRENDON   AND   SON,    LTD. 
PRINTERS,    PLYMOUTH 


14  DAY  USE 

M^  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

R*™1"      LOAN  DEPARTMI 


Due  end  of  SPRING  Quarter 
_Jubi§^_lQ_j»c*14--&itsr«=-r 

Due  end  of  V 


LD21-35m-2,'71 
(P2001sl0)47b— A-3.J 


CDS5DSE757 


LD9 


-30m 


ia;n^941 


1S4)4185 


-O-lOl 


*? 


